A recent outage on the Azure cloud computing platform affected thousands of users worldwide, causing disruptions in various sectors such as gaming, travel, and web services. The incident was reported to be caused by an “inadvertent configuration change” that triggered a widespread service disruption.
The outage impacted numerous companies including Starbucks, Alaska Airlines, Costco, Capital One, Kroger, among others. Many users experienced issues with Microsoft-affiliated products like Office 365, Minecraft, and Xbox Live. The tech giant confirmed the issue and attributed it to an internal “configuration change” within Azure’s cloud content delivery network.
Microsoft stated that engineers have mitigated the issue and restored partial to near-full service recovery. However, some users may still experience issues, and the company is working to mitigate this long tail. This incident highlights the growing dependence on tech providers and the need for resilience in the global cloud ecosystem.
Experts warn that such outages can have a significant impact on consumers, making it difficult for them to access important accounts or make payments. The UK’s consumer watchdog has called for businesses to ensure customers are kept informed and supported while services are restored, and anyone left out of pocket should be swiftly compensated.
The incident is the latest in a series of cloud outages that have affected major platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Snapchat. It emphasizes the need for diversification and a more open, competitive, and interoperable cloud market.
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/aws-outage-amazon-microsoft-down-live-updates-b2854714.html