Microsoft Azure Outage Disrupts 365, Xbox, Minecraft, and More Services

On Wednesday, Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud service, experienced a widespread outage. The disturbance began around noon Eastern Time and has impacted a range of Microsoft services.

Extent of the Microsoft Azure Outage

Microsoft confirmed the outage on their service status page. The company stated that an “inadvertent configuration change” likely caused the disruption. However, no specific timeline for service recovery has been provided.

Services Affected

• Microsoft 365
• Xbox
• Minecraft

In addition to Microsoft’s services, several third-party websites have also gone offline. Major retailers such as Costco and Starbucks reported accessibility issues during this outage.

Context of the Outage

This outage comes just hours before Microsoft is set to announce its earnings results for the quarter. The timing adds to the significance of the issue. Just a week ago, another major cloud provider, Amazon AWS, experienced a similar outage affecting numerous websites, banks, and government services.

The implications of such outages are substantial, affecting both businesses and consumers who rely on these digital services for daily operations.