Amazon Web Services (AWS) experienced a disruption in its cloud services after unidentified objects struck a data centre in the United Arab Emirates, resulting in a fire.
The incident occurred at approximately 4:30pm local time on Sunday (1 March), according to AWS, which stated that fire crews disconnected power to the facility and its generators while extinguishing the blaze.
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AWS confirmed that only one of its Availability Zones in the UAE was affected, and other groups of data centres within the region continued to operate as usual.
The outage coincided with reports of Iranian missile and drone attacks across several Middle Eastern countries, including the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, following strikes on Iranian officials.
While AWS did not confirm any link between the data centre incident and regional hostilities, it noted that objects hitting the site caused sparks and fire.
At time of writing (2 March), AWS reported ongoing connectivity issues and lack of power in the impacted zone in the UAE, advising customers to use alternative regions while it investigated further network problems.
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By GlobalDataThe company also acknowledged connectivity issues at its Bahrain data centre, but did not specify the cause of the disruptions.
AWS operates 123 groups of data centres across 39 regions worldwide.
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment regarding whether the UAE incident was directly connected to regional military activity.
In January, AWS announced a collaboration with Infosys to encourage the use of generative AI among enterprise customers.
The partnership will see Infosys integrate its Topaz suite with Amazon Q Developer, aiming to automate and improve core business operations across sectors, including manufacturing, financial services, telecommunications and consumer goods.
Infosys described Topaz as a collection of AI-based services, while Amazon Q Developer is an assistant powered by generative AI technology.
The integration will target processes such as software development, recruitment, human resources, sales and vendor management through automation of documentation tasks. It will also offer support for activities such as coding, debugging, testing and updating older IT systems.
