Microsoft‘s Azure, one of the world’s biggest cloud service providers, is suffering outages, triggering widespread internet disruptions across major companies.
According to Downdetector, problems began around 11:30am ET, with reports surging from users who could not access cloud-connected services, websites or apps.
The outage appears to be affecting dozens of platforms that rely on these cloud networks, including Microsoft 365, Xbox, Outlook, Starbucks, Costco and Kroger.
Even popular developer and data tools like Blackbaud and Minecraft are showing connectivity issues.
The simultaneous failure of AWS earlier this month and Azure is particularly alarming, as the two companies power much of the global internet infrastructure, responsible for hosting everything from retail and entertainment to business operations and cloud storage.
Frustrated users have flooded social media to vent, with one post on X reading: ‘First AWS, now Azure goes down. I love it when big companies own half the internet!!!’
According to Downdetector, problems began around 11:30am ET, with reports surging from users who couldn’t access cloud-connected services, websites or apps
Downdetector gets network status updates from social media platforms, reports submitted to its website and other sources around the web.
It ‘only reports an incident when the number of problem reports is significantly higher than the typical volume for that time of day,’ the website reads.
Downdetector has received nearly 20,000 issue reports from Azure users in the US.
Microsoft Azure posted an update noting that customers reported issues around 12pm ET, which were due to a part of the internet system that helps computers find websites (called DNS) being having problems.
‘Customers may experience issues accessing the Azure Portal,’ the alert reads.
‘We have taken action that is expected to address the portal access issues here shortly.
‘We are actively investigating the underlying issue and additional mitigation actions.’
While Microsoft has not released data on the exact number of companies using Azure, analysts have suggested there are more than 550,000 using the platform.
Downdetector has received nearly 20,000 issue reports from Azure users in the US
This is the second significant AWS outage in under ten days, raising renewed worries about how vulnerable the internet is when so much relies on just a handful of cloud providers
But the public is still reeling from the last outage that took down half the internet, so many are furious about another major service disruption hitting their favorite apps and websites.
Dr Milan Milanović posted on X: ‘It seems that we have another big outage now. I noticed on Azure, but it seems AWS is affected too.’
