The scenario everyone dreaded has happened. Microsoft Azure has gone down, leaving part of the internet silent. Users struggled for quite some time.
One week. That’s how long it took for history to repeat itself. Following the massive AWS outage that shook the internet, Microsoft faltered this time. Azure, the beating heart of the cloud, experienced a major outage that brought thousands of services to their knees. Xbox went offline, Microsoft 365 became inaccessible for some, and Minecraft was down. Even businesses, banks, and airlines were affected.
Microsoft Azure is down: A stark reminder of the importance of the cloud
In recent years, Azure has become one of the invisible pillars of the modern web. It powers tools that everyone uses without even realizing it, including professional email, video conferencing, online gaming, corporate websites, and databases.
So, when Azure goes down, a significant part of the internet experiences a crisis. This outage of Microsoft Azure did not go unnoticed, as Microsoft’s services began to slow down, then displayed errors and faced endless wait times.
Xbox Live, Microsoft 365, Minecraft, and even more technical services like Azure SQL Database and Azure Active Directory B2C were also affected. Ironically, Microsoft was unveiling its financial results at the same time, and their official website was experiencing slowdowns too.
The problem did not stop at Microsoft services. Companies like Capital One, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Starbucks, and Costco also faced interruptions. Some airlines even had to instruct travelers to go directly to counters to obtain their boarding passes.
So, what actually happened?
According to Microsoft, the outage was due to an unintentional configuration change combined with a DNS issue, likely stemming from a misconfigured line in the settings.
Based on information published on the Azure status page, the issue reportedly began around 4:00 PM UTC. Teams were working diligently to gradually restore services. Of course, Microsoft ensured that the ordeal didn’t last long.
The company noted that Azure Front Door’s service availability exceeded 98%. This means that most services are starting to return to normal. However, they aim for a complete recovery by October 30 at the earliest.
On the Xbox side, support announced that multiplayer services had been restored. However, some players had to restart their consoles to reconnect properly. Meanwhile, Microsoft 365 was still investigating “access issues” and continued rerouting traffic to alleviate server strain. In short, things are gradually getting back on track.
