Microsoft Cloud Outage Hit Millions of Users Globally; Here's What Happened
(Photo : LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images)
An estimated 280 million users around the world were affected by the Microsoft cloud outage, which was resolved later Wednesday morning.

Microsoft announced Wednesday that it has restored all of its cloud services after a networking disruption crippled Azure, Teams, and Outlook, used by millions worldwide.

Services throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa were affected, according to Azure's status page, per Reuters. Only Chinese services and its government platform remained unaffected by the Microsoft cloud outage.

Azure said that the Microsoft Wide Area Network had fully recovered by late morning and that most users should have had services restored around that time.

Users were unable to send messages, join calls, or utilize any other part of the Teams app during the Microsoft cloud outage. As a result of the widespread outcry about the service outage, the hashtag #MicrosoftTeams began trending on Twitter.

With over 280 million monthly active users, Microsoft Teams is widely used in offices and classrooms worldwide for facilitating communication, arranging meetings, and managing projects.

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Microsoft Blames Possible Networking Problem

Microsoft discovered a "potential networking issue" Wednesday morning, CNBC reported.

Around 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday, a surge in reports of disruptions with Microsoft products was reported on Downdetector, a service where individuals can register difficulties and outages with apps and websites.

The tech company tweeted an update at 9:26 GMT (4:26 ET), saying that the company has "rolled back" a network modification that they suspect is causing the Microsoft cloud outage.

"We're monitoring the service as the rollback takes effect," Microsoft stated.

Since the pandemic led to a change in which more people were working from home, companies have grown progressively more reliant on online services, per NDTV.

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