UAE data centre suffers outage after impact by ‘objects’

• Amazon service disrupted
• Unsure if objects were Iranian missiles
• AWS says traffic being rerouted

Amazon Web Services announced a significant service disruption on Sunday, after a data centre in the UAE “was impacted by objects… creating sparks and fire”.

The cloud computing arm of Amazon did not identify the objects. 

The news follows the UAE Defence Ministry’s confirmation on X that it intercepted more than 700 Iranian missiles and drones over the weekend.

Emergency responders cut power to the affected site and back-up generators as a safety precaution, AWS said.

It added it was investigating multiple service issues and that “we are aware that some customers are experiencing errors”.

Data storage services from AWS, such as DynamoDB and S3, experienced “significant error rates and latencies”, the company said. “We are actively working to restore power and connectivity, at which time we will begin to work to recover affected resources.”

AWS said it had begun rerouting customer traffic to other data centres and regions. “We expect recovery is multiple hours away,” it said.

The company operates more than 900 data centres worldwide. AWS said its other facilities were not directly impacted by the UAE outage. However, services dependent on the affected software systems and regional infrastructure remain degraded for some users.

Sarwa, an Abu Dhabi-based company that facilitates online trading, was apparently one of those companies affected.

In a message to its customers, it said: “We are currently experiencing a temporary service disruption” and “certain platform functionalities may be intermittently unavailable.”

It said the problem “relates to infrastructure services provided by AWS”, without offering further details.

Sarwa was approached for comment.

Abu Dhabi and other Gulf states, particularly energy-rich Saudi Arabia and Qatar, are competing to become regional hubs for AI data centres, offering rapid build-outs, state-backed infrastructure and low-cost electricity.

AWS declined to comment.