Microsoft cloud outage hits users around the world
Send a link to a friend
[January 25, 2023] By
Akriti Sharma
(Reuters) -Microsoft Corp on Wednesday said it had recovered all of its
cloud services after a networking outage took down its cloud platform
Azure along with services such as Teams and Outlook used by millions
around the globe.
Azure's status page showed services were impacted in Americas, Europe,
Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. Only services in China and its
platform for governments were not hit.
By late morning Azure said most customers should have seen services
resume after a full recovery of the Microsoft Wide Area Network (WAN).
An outage of Azure, which has 15 million corporate customers and over
500 million active users, according to Microsoft data, can impact
multiple services and create a domino effect as almost all of the
world's largest companies use the platform.
Businesses have become increasingly dependent on online platforms after
the pandemic caused a shift to more employees working from home.
Earlier, Microsoft said it had determined a network connectivity issue
was occurring with devices across the Microsoft WAN. This impacts
connectivity between clients on the internet to Azure, as well as
connectivity between services in data centres, it said.
Microsoft later tweeted that it had rolled back a network change that it
believed was causing the issue and was using "additional infrastructure
to expedite the recovery process".
Microsoft did not disclose the number of users affected by the
disruption, but data from outage tracking website Downdetector showed
thousands of incidents across continents.
The Downdetector site tracks outages by collating status reports from
various sources including users.
Microsoft's cloud business had helped shore up its fiscal second-quarter
earnings on Tuesday. It forecast third-quarter revenue in its so-called
intelligent cloud business would be $21.7 billion to $22 billion despite
worries that the lucrative cloud segment for big tech companies could be
hit hard as customers look to cut spending.
Azure's share of the cloud computing market rose to 30% in 2022,
trailing Amazon's AWS, according to estimates from BofA Global Research.
[to top of second column] |
A view shows a Microsoft logo at
Microsoft offices in Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris, France, January
25, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
Microsoft joined other big tech companies in turning to layoffs to
ride out the weaker economy, announcing last week it was cutting
over 10,000 jobs.
Its shares were down 2.4% in pre-market trading.
Outages of Big Tech platforms are not uncommon as several companies
ranging from Google to Meta have seen service disruptions. Azure,
the second largest cloud services provider after Amazon, faced
outages last year.
During the outage, users faced problems in exchanging messages,
joining calls or using any features of Teams application. Many users
took to Twitter to share updates about the service disruption, with
#MicrosoftTeams trending as a hashtag on the social media site.
Microsoft Teams, used by more than 280 million people globally,
forms an integral part of daily operations for businesses and
schools, which use the service to make calls, schedule meetings and
organise their workflow.
There were few signs of significant disruption at major UK-based
financial services firms, where multiple messaging applications
offered by providers like Movius and Symphony are used alongside
Microsoft Teams to connect bankers with clients, and office-based
staff with colleagues working remotely.
Two London-based sources, working at two major global banks, said
they hadn't even noticed a problem.
Deutsche Boerse Group, which operates the Frankfurt Stock Exchange,
said there had been no impact on trading. Frankfurt-based
Commerzbank AG said in a statement that Microsoft was investigating
several issues impacting the bank.
Among the other services affected were Microsoft Exchange Online,
SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, according to the company's
status page.
(Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Supantha Mukherjee in
Stockholm, additional reporting by Sinead Cruise in London; Writing
by Charlie Devereux, Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |