Amazon Web Services has told customers that some data and resources affected by wartime damage to its Bahrain cloud region and a UAE availability zone cannot be restored. AWS said it had exhausted options for recovering Bahrain-based data and resources that customers had not already moved or backed up elsewhere.
The incident highlights an important reality of cloud computing: the cloud still depends on physical infrastructure. Data centres, power systems, cooling equipment, networks and storage facilities remain exposed to physical and geopolitical risks. Customers have reportedly had to rely on remote backups and alternative regions to restore operations.
The disruption also raises questions about disaster recovery strategies. A multi-availability-zone setup can protect against individual infrastructure failures, but it does not necessarily provide protection against a wider regional event. For critical applications, organisations may need geographically independent backups, multi-region recovery plans or alternative infrastructure.
