Iran strikes on Amazon data centers caused permanent loss of customer data
War damage to data centers exceeded what AWS services are designed to withstand.
TL;DR
- AWS has acknowledged the permanent loss of some customer data hosted in data centers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
- The data centers were impacted by multiple Iranian drone and missile strikes between March and July.
- Damage to the infrastructure exceeded the resilience capabilities of AWS's regional and multi-availability zone services.
- Customer data was irretrievably lost in one availability zone in the UAE and across all three in Bahrain.
- AWS had suspended customer billing in affected regions and urged customers to migrate resources and use remote backups.
- The company issued $150 million in customer credits following the initial strikes.
- AWS is working on recovering regional resources, restoring services, and replacing affected infrastructure.
- Further updates on restoration of services are expected in the coming months and early 2027.