Major cloud providers like AWS and Microsoft Azure are redirecting critical data centre workloads from the Middle East (including the UAE, Oman, and Bahrain) to safer locations like India and Singapore due to regional conflict and recent drone attacks on facilities. This temporary rerouting, especially for banking clients, is focusing on Indian cities such as Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kochi due to their low-latency connections and readily available surplus data centre capacity.
The attacks disrupted numerous AWS services and affected banking, airport, and stock market operations, prompting providers to advise clients to enact disaster recovery plans and migrate workloads. While the moves are currently temporary, they may spur long-term increased investment in India as a secure backup hub, with the country's data centre capacity already poised for massive growth from significant committed investments.
The main topics covered are: the geopolitical redirection of cloud workloads, the impact of physical attacks on data centres, India's emergence as a preferred safe and available location, and the potential for long-term investment shifts in data centre infrastructure.
Hyperscale cloud companies including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are looking to redirect data centre workloads from Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman to safer locations such as India and Singapore due to the West Asian conflict, people involved in talks told ET.
âImmediate capacity is being sought in locations including Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi to reroute critical workloads, especially for banking clients,â an infrastructure company executive told ET. âKeeping latency in mind, these are the best-suited locations.â
Latency reflects the impact of distance on processing speed.
On March 2, two AWS data centres in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and one in Bahrain were struck by drones, hitting local banking apps, airport operations in Dubai and Kuwait, and the UAE stock market, which had to be closed due to tech outages. According to AWS updates, 25 services continue to be âdisruptedâ in the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region (ME-CENTRAL-1) while 34 services have been âdegraded.â Two of AWSâ Availability Zones (mec1-az2 and mec1-az3) in Bahrain also continue to be impaired.
Global reports suggest that a Microsoft Azure facility in Tehran may have been targeted. However, the company has not announced any disruptions yet.
AWS and Microsoft did not respond to ETâs queries.
While these are temporary moves, they could spark increased investment in India since global enterprise clients may consider building back-up options in the country for the long term.
Global hyperscalers and Indian groups including Reliance, Adani, Tata and Larsen & Toubro have committed investments of $270 billion. Thatâs expected to expand the countryâs cumulative data centre capacity to 10 gigawatts from 1.4 GW over the next five-seven years.
âThe Middle East altogether is a critical cloud region with a cumulative data centre capacity of 1 GW⦠and major clients have evoked disaster recovery plans since the tensions escalated last week,â said Piyush Somani, managing director at Pune-based data centre company ESDS Software Solutions.
He said India and Singapore have robust subsea cable links for IT workloads eastward, while Europe offers that flexibility westward.
âHowever, given the current geopolitical stance, India appears to be a more peaceful and safer location for temporary rerouting,â he said.
Somani said India has readily available surplus supply as many large entities have added substantial data centre capacity over the last 12-15 months.
Typically, data centre operators build redundancy and backups at multiple geographies in the vicinity of core sites. However, since the entire Gulf region is volatile, cloud companies are looking to divert traffic to Europe, the US and the Asia-Pacific.
âWe strongly recommend that customers with workloads running in the Middle East take action now to migrate those workloads to alternate AWS regions,â AWS said in a recent update. âCustomers should enact their disaster recovery plans, recover from remote backups stored in other regions, and update their applications to direct traffic away from the affected regions.â
Locations such as Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia are also safer options but are constrained by land and power, said a cloud analyst at a research firm. âThe only opportunity for abundance right now is India, along with favourable tax policies from the government,â the person said.
âImmediate capacity is being sought in locations including Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi to reroute critical workloads, especially for banking clients,â an infrastructure company executive told ET. âKeeping latency in mind, these are the best-suited locations.â
Latency reflects the impact of distance on processing speed.
On March 2, two AWS data centres in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and one in Bahrain were struck by drones, hitting local banking apps, airport operations in Dubai and Kuwait, and the UAE stock market, which had to be closed due to tech outages. According to AWS updates, 25 services continue to be âdisruptedâ in the AWS Middle East (UAE) Region (ME-CENTRAL-1) while 34 services have been âdegraded.â Two of AWSâ Availability Zones (mec1-az2 and mec1-az3) in Bahrain also continue to be impaired.
Global reports suggest that a Microsoft Azure facility in Tehran may have been targeted. However, the company has not announced any disruptions yet.
AWS and Microsoft did not respond to ETâs queries.
While these are temporary moves, they could spark increased investment in India since global enterprise clients may consider building back-up options in the country for the long term.
Global hyperscalers and Indian groups including Reliance, Adani, Tata and Larsen & Toubro have committed investments of $270 billion. Thatâs expected to expand the countryâs cumulative data centre capacity to 10 gigawatts from 1.4 GW over the next five-seven years.
âThe Middle East altogether is a critical cloud region with a cumulative data centre capacity of 1 GW⦠and major clients have evoked disaster recovery plans since the tensions escalated last week,â said Piyush Somani, managing director at Pune-based data centre company ESDS Software Solutions.
He said India and Singapore have robust subsea cable links for IT workloads eastward, while Europe offers that flexibility westward.
âHowever, given the current geopolitical stance, India appears to be a more peaceful and safer location for temporary rerouting,â he said.
Somani said India has readily available surplus supply as many large entities have added substantial data centre capacity over the last 12-15 months.
Typically, data centre operators build redundancy and backups at multiple geographies in the vicinity of core sites. However, since the entire Gulf region is volatile, cloud companies are looking to divert traffic to Europe, the US and the Asia-Pacific.
âWe strongly recommend that customers with workloads running in the Middle East take action now to migrate those workloads to alternate AWS regions,â AWS said in a recent update. âCustomers should enact their disaster recovery plans, recover from remote backups stored in other regions, and update their applications to direct traffic away from the affected regions.â
Locations such as Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia are also safer options but are constrained by land and power, said a cloud analyst at a research firm. âThe only opportunity for abundance right now is India, along with favourable tax policies from the government,â the person said.
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