On Twitter, Microsoft explains “DNS issues affect many Microsoft 365 and Azure services,” and refers to its status page, in which there should be more information about failures. However, this is no longer the case (anymore). Instead, it says there are no problems. However, on Friday night, Teams, Xbox Live, and SharePoint were at least partially unavailable.
The history can also be followed on Twitter. The first problems appear there late Thursday evening. “We are investigating issues that appear to cause users to not be able to access their Microsoft 365 services. More information will follow.” The information does not go beyond the subsequent explanation of DNS failures. After about three hours, it’s pretty clear that all services are available again.
Time and time again cloud services fail
Microsoft just ran into similar problems: Two weeks ago, several services failed due to an authentication error. Specifically, this could be caused by a key error in Azure Active Directory (AAD), which has been deleted automatically, although it is still required. And last fall, Microsoft’s cloud services took a hit due to the change of AAD around the world. At the time, you couldn’t sign up for five hours. This failure was also overnight CET, so it is unlikely to have affected many other companies and users in this country. But it was different with the previous problems.
Also in Google, there were many crashes in the cloud services, which resulted in the unavailability of many other services; Including mail messages, calendars, and collaboration tools. At the same time, Google offers premium support for companies called Mission Critical Services (MCS), which target customers who cannot stand a service failure – for example in the financial sector. Not only should the service ensure that the cloud operates without lag, but concepts and methods for running crash-safe applications must also be developed with the company.
(emw)
