AWS suspended billing for ME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1 after Iranian drone strikes damaged UAE and Bahrain data centers, with full recovery expected months away.
Key Takeaways
Drone strikes hit three AWS data centers in UAE and Bahrain in late February 2026; recovery is projected to take nearly half a year total.
AWS waived all March 2026 usage charges at an estimated cost of $150 million and continues suspending billing through the repair period.
AWS strongly recommends customers migrate to other regions and restore from remote backups; resources in affected regions remain inaccessible.
Careem (Dubai super app) recovered quickly via an overnight cross-region migration, demonstrating that pre-built multi-region setups reduce blast radius.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters flagged data centers as high-value, low-cost targets: a handful of cheap drones can inflict billions in damage, regardless of provider secrecy around facility locations.
Discussion questioned damage scope, noting only 19 server racks were reportedly affected, which surprised commenters given the destructive radius of Shahed-class long-range drones.
Notable Comments
@cute_boi: Suggests data center locations may be inferrable via ping latency, undermining AWS location secrecy.
