Fire at Amazon data centre in UAE disrupts services

What happened

Objects struck an Amazon Web Services data centre in the UAE, creating sparks and a fire, the company said. The fire department shut off power to the facility and to generators while putting out the fire. Connectivity and power issues affected APIs and instances in a single Availability Zone (mec1-az2) in the ME-CENTRAL-1 Region. Other Availability Zones in the region were reported to be operating normally. Power restoration was delayed while the company awaited permission to turn power back on, and no restoration time had been given in the updates reported.

Contributing factors

The company said objects striking the facility created sparks and a fire. What the objects were, and why they struck the site, was not reported.

Lessons learned

1. An external impact can force both site power and generators to be isolated while a fire is fought.
2. Customers of a multi-zone region need a workable path to other zones or regions when one zone loses power.
3. Power should not be restored until the fire service has given permission, and customers should be told when that timing is still unknown.

Source

khaleejtimes.com