Iran strikes leave Amazon availability zones "hard down" in Bahrain and Dubai
by upofadown on 4/3/2026, 9:25:55 PM
https://www.bigtechnology.com/p/iran-strikes-leave-amazon-availability
Comments
by: xoa
This may have been long discussed, but I feel like this war is the first time I've really thought hard about how big a target data centers would be in any sort of modern peer war and how that's an entirely new thing since the last time it was really on the radar (end of CW) right? We've built trillions and trillions of dollars in infrastructure in the peace time since, and it seems fairly concentrated. AWS is amongst the biggest there is, and according to mappers like [0] there are only around 240 operational total worldwide with another 130ish under construction. Like, in one respect that seems like a bunch, but vs the kind of attacks we see done in a matter of days in modern wars it's a pretty small number for the whole planet isn't it? In the first 24 hours of the war the US and Israel launched on Iran, they hit something like 1500-2000 targets. How hardened are the data centers? Are they in structures that handle some level of explosives? Do they have counter measures like internal blast walls dividing things into cells so a few hundred pounds of high explosive in one area doesn't damage outside the cell? I mean, of course like all data centers they'll have considered extensive countermeasures to fire, environmental threats, grid issues and so on. But has "nation-state level attack via mass drones or bombardment" been part of the threat model over the last few decades? Hardening of telecoms was certainly considered for old Ma Bell and such back in the CW days but that was a very different environment.<p>I guess it makes me think about what a soft underbelly this could be for a lot of modern society. There's always been consideration of threats to refineries and power stations and industrial production and all those big metal deals. But like, forget any sort of nuclear exchange, any sort of crazy super Starfish style big EMP, just purely a few thousand drones nailing data centers. Nobody even directly dies, just a lot of wrecked computers. What <i>would</i> be the cost of losing all the clouds and colo stuff? How long to replace, at what cost? How much depends on it?<p>----<p>0: <a href="https://www.datacentermap.com/c/amazon-aws/" rel="nofollow">https://www.datacentermap.com/c/amazon-aws/</a>
4/3/2026, 10:08:12 PM
by: sva_
I didn't know they had strong workers rights/union culture down there to strike.
4/3/2026, 10:02:12 PM
by: postsantum
I hate when "the cloud" which I imagined to be some entity in ether space, turns out to be just a building with computers that can be bombed
4/3/2026, 11:53:08 PM
by: shevy-java
Trump really only babbles nothing burgers now. The whole "we must open the Strait of Hormuz", but it was closed following the invasion of Iran at the behest of Netanyahu proxy-controlling Trump - so how is that then logical that you refer to a prior state that already existed, as a new war-meta-goal? This is like an autogenerate of fake news and lies. This can not be the person really "leading" the USA, so who is really making those decisions? Trump even forgets what he said the day before and even contradicts himself in the very same sentence; then he chains buzzwords that make no sense, such as "we can not have healthcare because we must wage war instead". This is like George Orwell 1984, but stupid. George Orwell's book made sense; Trump is just dementia 2.0 1984 reversed. Nobody would read that Trump-novel, just as nobody serious would watch Melania. It's the ultimate Soap TV show for the US audience, but it is just not watchable. No risk management or analysis; Hegseth recently mass-fired those who said his plan is stupid. Well, even after firing people, the plan is just stupid.
4/3/2026, 10:58:10 PM
by: kelsey98765431
if you dont colo your own servers you don't own anything.
4/3/2026, 9:49:34 PM