One of Amazon's data centers in the UAE caught fire after being hit by 'objects' amid the Middle East conflict
Illustration by Thomas Fuller/NurPhoto via Getty Images
- Amazon Web Services had a power outage at one of its facilities in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday.
- The fire was caused by "objects" that impacted the facility at around 7:30 a.m. ET.
- The impact sparked a fire. Firefighters cut power to the facility while they extinguished it.
Amazon Web Services said on Sunday that connectivity from one of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates was down after a fire at the facility.
AWS, Amazon's cloud service, said that one of its "Availability Zones" had been "impacted by objects" at around 7:30 a.m. ET. The impact created "sparks and fire," per AWS.
"The fire department shut off power to the facility and generators as they worked to put out the fire," the company said.
The company did not say in its statement what the objects were.
According to Amazon's website, an availability zone can comprise one or more data centers. The company has three availability zones in the UAE, per its coverage map.
The Sunday fire at the AWS facility happened amid US and Israeli military strikes on Iran and retaliatory attacks from the Iranian military on at least half a dozen Gulf states.
Photos and videos showed missiles streaking across the sky in Dubai on Saturday and Sunday. Fallout from intercepted missiles caused fires and other problems across the region. The Fairmont's famed luxury property on the Palm saw damage, as did Dubai's main airport and the Burj Al-Arab hotel.
Just before 7:30 p.m. ET, AWS said it was seeing "significant signs of recovery" for some systems, but power was still down at the center.
"We do not have an ETA for power restoration at this time. For customers that can, we recommend using alternate Availability Zones or other AWS Regions where applicable," the company said in its Sunday evening statement.