 "Amazon’s cloud service AWS reports fire after object struck the facility centre")
Amazon’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Service (AWS) reported a shutdown to its data centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Sunday after objects struck the facility amid the ongoing West Asia crisis causing sparks and fire.
The crisis is leading to less network connectivity in the region and increased error rates. UAE is reeling from Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone strikes following US and Israeli attacks on Iran.
Objects struck at the data centre
AWS said, “At around 4:30 AM PST, one of our Availability Zones (mec1-az2) was impacted by objects that struck the data center, creating sparks and fire,” Reuters reported.
According to the company, an “Availability Zone” is made up of one or more connected physical data centres.
The impact created sparks and led to a fire inside the facility. Emergency teams responded, and the local fire department temporarily cut power to the affected site while extinguishing the fire.
The company added that it may take several hours to fully restore connectivity in the affected zone.
The fire department cut the power to the facility while crew worked to extinguish the fire, the company said.
Looking at the conditions, it will take several hours to restore connectivity in the state, the data center operator said, adding that other zones in the UAE are operating normally.
What all will be impacted?
The activity will affect thousands of businesses, startups, and the government services across the Middle East. It will also hamper the online platforms, banking services, e-commerce services, cloud workloads.
The UAE region (me-central-1) plays a key role in providing low-latency cloud services to customers across the Gulf and neighbouring countries.
AWS has not provided an exact timeline for full recovery but stated that restoration efforts are ongoing.
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