Microsoft Azure cloud service hit with outage

Microsoft says users of its Azure cloud portal may not be able to access Office 365, Minecraft or other services due to issues with its global content delivery network services.

The tech company posted a note to its Azure status page that its teams are currently investigating issues related to its Azure Front Door service and acting to mitigate access problems.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company acknowledged the issues on its Azure status page and its social media accounts.

Because so many sites and services use Microsoft’s cloud service, an outage like this one can have widespread impact.

On Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages, users reported issues with Office 365, Minecraft, X-Box Live, Copilot, Costco, Starbucks, and many other services.

Alaska Airlines wrote on its X account that the outage is at the heart of problems affecting its systems, including check-in services.

Microsoft’s Azure troubles came just hours before the company was set to release its quarterly earnings report, and just over a week after a massive outage of Amazon’s cloud computing service took down a broad range of online services, including social media, gaming, food delivery, streaming and financial platforms.

Amazon is the dominant provider of cloud computing services but Microsoft ranks second, ahead of Google, in most markets.