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Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

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Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#11

Post by bawolff »

VoidWarranty wrote: post #2

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

I imagine the same reason they have a data center in places like Sao Paulo. More locally centred businesses want the low ping, and AWS wants to be your cloud compute provider of choice no matter where your target audience is.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#12

Post by rkagerer »

VoidWarranty wrote: post #2

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

If anyone here is involved in making decisions about where to locate such centers, I'd love to hear more about how geopolitical risk factors in, and whether you plan and price out contingencies (e.g. "This is near an unstable area, worst case is we write off $###M, but after Y years it breaks even. And the site is better in these other factors than alternative Z over there..."). Is it similar to factoring for geophysical instabilities (e.g. earthquake/tsunami zone) or other risks? Or would this type of event catch you completely offguard? I'm guessing insurance riders specifically exclude these types of risks.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#13

Post by tiew9Vii »

VoidWarranty wrote: post #2

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

Middle East isn’t some 3rd world. If you can imagine futuristic cities, rich Middle East countries are already living in them with all the oil wealth.

They have phones, computers, digital services just like the US and Europe. Makes sense they want a data center in the region, close to them just like the US and Europe have data enters close to their users.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#14

Post by ceejayoz »

bawolff wrote: post #9

I do think there is some irony that the Iran war took down all the AWS datacenters in the middle east except the one (or 3 i guess) in Israel, which is still chugging along. Like as a strategy its kind of weird. Iran plans to force Israel to stop by wrecking the economies of a bunch of countries that are basically frenemies of Israel? I suppose its meant to pressure USA, it just seems like a terrible strategy.

It's not that they don't want to hit the ones in Israel, it's that they're better defended, and further away.

Bahrain to Iran is ~140 miles. Dubai is ~100 miles. Israel is closer to ~600.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#15

Post by toast0 »

VoidWarranty wrote: post #2

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

There's a fair amount of nearby customers. There's decent connectivity via undersea cables to Europe, East Asia, and Africa. UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are very encouraging of outside investments in their countries.

I did some work with hosts on GCP in the region and you get fun things like hosts in Israel has bad routes to customers in nearby countries and vice versa, though. I don't know if AWS has access to better routing. Definitely a case where physical distance doesn't really correspond with network distance.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#16

Post by bawolff »

ceejayoz wrote: post #14
bawolff wrote: post #9

I do think there is some irony that the Iran war took down all the AWS datacenters in the middle east except the one (or 3 i guess) in Israel, which is still chugging along. Like as a strategy its kind of weird. Iran plans to force Israel to stop by wrecking the economies of a bunch of countries that are basically frenemies of Israel? I suppose its meant to pressure USA, it just seems like a terrible strategy.

It's not that they don't want to hit the ones in Israel, it's that they're better defended, and further away. Bahrain to Iran is ~140 miles. Dubai is ~100 miles. Israel is closer to ~600.

No doubt. But it still seems like a bizarre strategy. They can't shoot the people they want so they just shoot these other randoms.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#17

Post by andrepd »

tiew9Vii wrote: post #13
VoidWarranty wrote: post #2

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

Middle East isn’t some 3rd world. If you can imagine futuristic cities, rich Middle East countries are already living in them with all the oil wealth. They have phones, computers, digital services just like the US and Europe. Makes sense they want a data center in the region, close to them just like the US and Europe have data enters close to their users.

Slight tangent, but to me futuristic cities are actually places like Amsterdam, with cozy streets and bike lanes everywhere, not places like Dubai with 16-lane freeways and a quasi-slave underclass staffing the tacky malls.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#18

Post by toyg »

bawolff wrote: post #9

I do think there is some irony that the Iran war took down all the AWS datacenters in the middle east except the one (or 3 i guess) in Israel, which is still chugging along. Like as a strategy its kind of weird. Iran plans to force Israel to stop by wrecking the economies of a bunch of countries that are basically frenemies of Israel? I suppose its meant to pressure USA, it just seems like a terrible strategy.

It's supposed to show to regional US allies that the American military cannot really protect them, pushing them to apply pressure to end the war in the short term, and to cool their relationship with the US and Israel in the long term.

It has had some effect; the emirates are desperate to find a way out of this conflict, and various figures have publicly said "the system of alliances [with the US] has worked but needs to be modernized" - i.e. we can't allow Americans to do what they want anymore.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#19

Post by andrepd »

bawolff wrote: post #16
ceejayoz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that they don't want to hit the ones in Israel, it's that they're better defended, and further away. Bahrain to Iran is ~140 miles. Dubai is ~100 miles. Israel is closer to ~600.

No doubt. But it still seems like a bizarre strategy. They can't shoot the people they want so they just shoot these other randoms.

These other "randoms" are US allies which host bases and equipment used to attack them.

In more practical terms, wrecking shit up in places like Dubai that made their name off air travel and attracting "expat" douchebags, is a very effective way to get them to pressure the US to stop the war. So is blowing up oil infra and stopping transit in Hormuz for allied nations.

Re: Iranian missile blitz takes down AWS data centers in Bahrain and Dubai

#20

Post by paxys »

VoidWarranty wrote: post #2

Not to be insensitive about the humanitarian and economic situation, but, I am curious why there are data centers in that region at all? It just seems horribly inefficient from a cooling and electricity standpoint. Not to mention water. My pessimistic assumption is that Amazon said "yes" to handouts from regional government efforts to be relevant in tech, and that those data centers dont really matter to anyone but l…

Because there are customers there
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