Microsoft said early Saturday, Nov. 14, that it had restored Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services to all affected customers and regions, ending one of the largest IT failures in years.[2][3]
Related: Global Microsoft 365 Outage Cuts Off Outlook Email Into a Second Day.
What caused it
Microsoft said the problem was introduced during a network capacity upgrade and was not caused by a cyberattack.[1][2] Its first updates on Thursday described servers that were unexpectedly unavailable, straining the rest of its infrastructure. The company said it would publish a full report once its review is complete.[1]
“We are deeply sorry for the disruption,” a Microsoft spokesperson said Friday.[1]
Who was hit
The outage began shortly before 1 p.m. ET on Thursday and reached more than 70 countries.[1][2] Governments in Japan, Singapore and Australia said some operations were affected.[3]
In Britain, parts of the National Health Service were disrupted, and some hospital staff used paper records. Some courts sent juries home early.[3] In the U.S., staff at the House of Representatives lost a day of legislative work, Politico reported, according to the BBC.[2]
Companies felt it too. Richemont’s earnings were slightly delayed, and Workhorse Group pushed its quarterly results to Nov. 16.[1]
Questions for Microsoft
Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat who once worked at Microsoft, said he had asked for a briefing.[1] A Control Risks partner told CNBC the event showed how much organizations now depend on a small number of technology providers.[1]
Microsoft extended the delivery window for delayed emails to 48 hours to keep messages from being lost.[1]
Our Take
A capacity upgrade taking down email in 70 countries is the kind of risk that rarely shows up in a vendor contract. Businesses that ran this week on paper and phone trees learned what their backup plan really is. Expect boards to ask for one that does not depend on a single provider. Our earlier report: the outage’s second day. More in technology and business news.
Sources
- CNBC: Microsoft apologizes for massive outage that took down Outlook and other 365 services
- BBC News: Microsoft says services fully restored after day-long global outage
- The Guardian: Microsoft says services fully restored after global outage hits governments
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