In a rough day for the cloud-dependent internet, Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform suffered a major, global outage yesterday (October 29), taking down a long list of services from Xbox Live and Microsoft 365 to critical systems for airlines and banks.
Microsoft confirmed that the disruption began around 16:00 UTC (12:00 p.m. ET) on October 29. The issue was traced to Azure Front Door (AFD), a key content delivery and traffic management system that helps deliver apps and data efficiently to users worldwide.
According to Microsoft’s official status page, the company “confirmed that an inadvertent configuration change was the trigger event for this issue.” The misconfiguration caused widespread latencies, timeouts, and connection errors across multiple regions and services.
Recovery in progress
In its latest update as of the time of writing, Microsoft said it has “completed deployment of our ‘last known good’ configuration,” and that engineers are now rerouting traffic through healthy nodes while recovering damaged ones.
The company noted that the recovery process was “gradual by design,” explaining that this approach helps prevent overload and ensures stability as dependent services come back online.
While access to the Azure management portal was briefly impacted, Microsoft said it has redirected portal traffic away from the faulty AFD infrastructure, allowing most users to sign in again. However, a few features may still load slowly.
Microsoft estimates full recovery by 00:40 UTC (8:40 p.m. ET) but cautions that some customers may still experience intermittent issues until all systems are stable.
Microsoft and 365 services impacted
The outage rippled through Microsoft’s own ecosystem. The list of affected services was long and included App Service, Azure SQL Database, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Sentinel, Azure Maps, Media Services, and Virtual Desktop, among others.
The Microsoft 365 status account on X confirmed “downstream impact related to the ongoing Azure outage,” affecting access to Outlook, Teams, and other productivity tools.
Gaming platforms were also hit. Xbox Live and Minecraft users reported failed logins and multiplayer connection issues throughout the afternoon.
The Azure outage didn’t stop at Microsoft’s borders. Several major companies that rely on its cloud platform also suffered downtime.
Alaska Airlines said it was “experiencing a disruption to key systems, including our websites,” due to the Azure issue, while Hawaiian Airlines and Heathrow Airport reported similar problems. In the UK, websites for NatWest and M&S temporarily went offline.
Retailers and coffee chains weren’t spared either, as users reported issues accessing Starbucks, Costco, and Kroger websites.
A bad week for cloud service providers
The timing of the outage was particularly awkward for Microsoft, coming just hours before its quarterly earnings release, and barely a week after Amazon Web Services (AWS) suffered a major failure that took down parts of the internet.
Both companies dominate the global cloud market, AWS holds roughly 32% and Azure 23%, according to Canalys, meaning even small disruptions can ripple worldwide.
As of Thursday morning (October 30), many affected sites and apps had begun to recover. Microsoft said “AFD service is now operating above 98% availability,” but it had blocked customer configuration changes during the fix to prevent further disruption.
Microsoft and OpenAI unveiled a deal extending IP rights, adding independent AGI verification, and giving both sides more freedom while maintaining Azure ties.
