Microsoft: Misconfigured Network Device Caused Azure Outage

A misconfigured network device caused Thursday's outage for the Windows Azure cloud computing platform, Microsoft said Friday. The downtime left the Azure Compute service unavailable to cstomers in some parts of Europe for more than two hours.

"The interruption impacted our Compute Service and resulted in connectivity issues for some of our customers in the sub-region," wrote Mike Neil, General Manager of Windows Azure, in a blog post. "The service interruption was triggered by a misconfigured network device that disrupted traffic to one cluster in our West Europe sub-region. Once a set device limit for external connections was reached, it triggered previously unknown issues in another network device within that cluster, which further complicated network management and recovery. Our teams are working hard on a full root cause analysis and we will share the findings on this blog next week."