Microsoft Azure and 365 Outage: Thousands Affected Worldwide
A global Microsoft outage is causing widespread disruptions to various websites and services, including A global Microsoft outage is causing widespread disruptions to various services, including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Minecraft, and more. The issue seems to be related to DNS problems with Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform, which supports many online services.
Affected Services:
- Microsoft Services:
- Microsoft 365 (including Outlook and Teams)
- Azure cloud computing platform
- Minecraft
- Xbox
- Microsoft Store
- Other Websites and Services:
- Heathrow
- NatWest
- Asda (supermarket)
- O2 (mobile phone operator)
- Starbucks (coffee chain)
- Kroger (retailer)
- Alaska Airlines (website and app)
- Scottish Parliament’s online voting system
Microsoft has acknowledged the issue and is working to resolve it. According to their status page, they’re experiencing DNS issues resulting in availability degradation of some services. They’re taking action to address the portal access issues and are investigating the underlying problem.
Causes of the Outage:
- DNS Issues: The Domain Name System (DNS) is the internet’s phonebook, translating website addresses into machine-readable IP addresses. Errors in this system can disrupt connections across the internet.
- Inadvertent Configuration Change: Microsoft reported that an inadvertent configuration change related to its Azure Front Door (AFD) service might be the trigger for the outage.
- Identity/Control-Plane Issues: Problems with Azure Active Directory and its authentication routing could be preventing sign-in to cloud resources and breaking SSO flows.
Impact:
- Productivity Loss: Teams, Outlook, or SharePoint unavailability can disrupt routine business operations, scheduled meetings, and time-sensitive collaboration.
- Admin Paralysis: Admins unable to access the admin center cannot perform emergency configuration changes.
- Consumer and Gaming Impact: Minecraft Realms, servers, and authentication outages prevent multiplayer and can affect large user communities and streamers.
What to Do:
- Administrators:
- Check Microsoft’s official service health dashboard and your tenant’s Service Health page for the incident ID and latest updates.
- Use alternate communication channels to coordinate incident response.
- Validate account authentication flows and revoke temporary or emergency credentials after restoration.
- End Users:
- Try alternate sign-in methods or wait and retry.
- Use offline modes in Microsoft apps to save work locally until sync is restored.
- Report issues to your admin.
Long-term Recommendations:
Maintain Redundancy: Evaluate secondary collaboration/notification channels to avoid single-vendor lock-in for crisis coordination
Multi-path Admin Access: Ensure more than one global admin account is available with alternative authentication factors or out-of-band recovery options.
Document and Test Incident Runbooks: Account for identity outages and manual procedures for critical workflows.
Microsoft Azure and 365 Outage FAQs
What happened?
Microsoft experienced a global outage affecting its Azure cloud computing platform and Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams, and Minecraft. The issue started around 9 am Pacific time and 16:00 UTC.
What’s the cause?
Microsoft suspects an inadvertent configuration change triggered the issue. They’re taking concurrent actions to block changes to Azure Front Door services and rolling back to the last known good state.
Which services are affected?
- Microsoft Services:
- Azure cloud computing platform
- Microsoft 365 (including Outlook and Teams)
- Minecraft
- Xbox
- Microsoft Store
- Other affected services:
- Starbucks
- Kroger
- Costco
- Dutch railway system
What are the impacts?
- Productivity loss: Teams, Outlook, or SharePoint unavailability can disrupt routine business operations.
- Admin challenges: Admins can’t access the admin center, making it hard to perform emergency configuration changes.
What is Microsoft doing?
- Investigation: Microsoft is actively investigating the issue and working to restore services.
- Rollback: They’re rolling back to the last known good state and blocking changes to Azure Front Door services.
- Failover options: Microsoft is assessing failover options for internal services.
When will it be resolved?
There’s no estimated time of arrival (ETA) for when the rollback will be completed, but Microsoft will provide updates within 30 minutes or when there’s an update
