Microsoft suffers global Azure outage just hours before earnings report
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The news: Microsoft experienced a global outage on Wednesday, disrupting access to its Azure cloud services and Microsoft 365 platforms just hours before its scheduled quarterly earnings release.
The company acknowledged the incident on its Azure support account on X, and its service status pages, saying customers may have issues accessing services and the Azure portal.
The company said the outage was partly caused by problems with its Azure Front Door service, which helps manage internet traffic to its cloud platforms, and by DNS issues, which affect how web addresses connect to the right online services.
Downdetector reported issues began around 11:40 am ET (2:40am Thursday AEDT). Azure’s network infrastructure status was marked “critical” across all global regions.
What they said: Microsoft said it was rerouting traffic to alternate infrastructure while investigating.
“Starting at approximately 16:00 UTC (3:00am Thursday AEDT), customers and Microsoft services that leverage Azure Front Door (AFD) may have experienced issues resulting in latencies, timeouts and errors. We have confirmed that an inadvertent configuration change as the trigger event for this issue.”
According to media reports, affected services included Outlook, Teams, Minecraft, Xbox Live and Copilot, as well as websites for Heathrow, NatWest, Asda, O2, Starbucks and Kroger.
Business at the Scottish Parliament was suspended due to technical issues, which a senior source told the BBC were believed to be linked to the Microsoft outage.
The disruption followed a similar AWS outage a week earlier, and comes ahead of Microsoft’s first quarter earnings, which are expected to reveal USD75.5 billion in revenue and USD3.68 earnings per share, according to Bloomberg consensus estimates.
Microsoft has also been in the headlines this week after announcing a revised agreement with OpenAI, under which OpenAI committed to USD250 billion in Azure usage.
The sources: Microsoft, Downdetector, CNBC, BBC, Associated Press
