Microsoft: Network problems paralyze numerous services

Numerous Microsoft services were down on January 24. This was due to a network error in Microsoft’s in-house cloud Azure. Through a rollback, the problems could be largely resolved.

Affected all online services

Since all online services that Microsoft offers run on Azure, all of these services were affected by the glitch. According to media reports, however, this did not mean a complete outage. Individual services worked sporadically again and again; however, there were basically major impairments in terms of functionality.

After numerous reports from those affected, Microsoft initially announced via Twitter that it was searching for the cause of the problem. Shortly after, it was also announced via Twitter that a network error could be found as the reason for the impairments. Unlike at the beginning of last year, there was an internal problem, not a cyber attack.

The status display of the Azure cloud service confirmed this statement: here, outages of many functions were noted worldwide. In the meantime, no such entries can be found on the constantly updated status page.

Outlook and Office also affected

In addition to services such as Teams, OneDrive or SharePoint, the extremely popular Outlook and Office services were also affected by the disruption. With Outlook being an email client, this is obvious. Office applications were affected insofar as they – if included in the Microsoft 365 subscription – also require an Internet connection. The cloud outage thus also highlights the downside of the increasing shift of essential computer services to the Internet.

All of the following services were down:

• Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Exchange
• Microsoft SharePoint
• Microsoft OneDrive
• Microsoft Graph
• Microsoft 365

Rollback of server

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Microsoft then announced its intention to reset some network settings by rolling back the server. From this, the corporation promised to fix the network problems. To all appearances this succeeded: On 25.01., the problems were mostly solved and there was no longer an accumulation of complaints. Microsoft nevertheless announced an update that is supposed to fix the problem once and for all.