Today's MS AD global outage

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Kookoo

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#290529 17-Nov-2021 16:21

Outage itself aside, someone at Microsoft should learn to write better status updates.

We have identified a potential root cause and are actively working towards mitigation.

What's the difference between a "root cause" and just a cause? And if you're "actively working" does it mean you can be "passively working"? And I really hope you're working on a solution, not towards mitigation, because to mitigate is to reduce something. Basically what you're trying to say is...

We think we know what's causing it and are working on a solution.

Hello, Ground!

Behodar

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#2814639 17-Nov-2021 16:35

As per Sir Humphrey, "under consideration" means we've lost the file, and "under active consideration" means we're trying to find it.

Kookoo

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#2814646 17-Nov-2021 16:40

Behodar:

As per Sir Humphrey, "under consideration" means we've lost the file, and "under active consideration" means we're trying to find it.

- I must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to the newly instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and will, in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a constriction of the channels of communication, and culminate in a condition of organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis, which will render effectively impossible the coherent and co-ordinated discharge of the function of government within Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!

- You mean Azure B2C stopped working?

Hello, Ground!

OzoneNZ

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#2814701 17-Nov-2021 17:11

Wonder if the NZ COVID Vaccine Certificate site going live today had anything to do with the outage, looks like the auth for it is powered by Azure AD B2C and it's been getting a hammering today

dfnt

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#2814761 17-Nov-2021 17:46

Must admit I didn’t even notice the outage across multiple tenants I was working on today

gzt

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#2814787 17-Nov-2021 18:54

Full notice at this time - https://status.azure.com

Azure Active Directory - Issues when attempting to authenticate.

Impact Statement: Starting at 20:20 UTC on 16 Nov 2021, customers using Azure Active Directory External Identities may experience issues when attempting to authenticate.

Current Status: We have identified a potential root cause and are actively working towards mitigation. Impacted customers will receive the updates through their portal.

This message was last updated at 02:47 UTC on j17 November 2021

gzt

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#2814813 17-Nov-2021 19:23

Kookoo:
Outage itself aside, someone at Microsoft should learn to write better status updates.

We have identified a potential root cause and are actively working towards mitigation.

What's the difference between a "root cause" and just a cause?

As an example an apparent cause may have been deletion of a record and a root cause may have been some system that deleted it unnecessarily.

And if you're "actively working" does it mean you can be "passively working"?

Yep. Means actual work is in progress vs eg waiting for someone to turn up.

And I really hope you're working on a solution, not towards mitigation, because to mitigate is to reduce something.

Mitigating the issue may well be the best way to get things up and running and restore full service. Fixing the underlying issue for ever and ever to eliminate the possibility it can ever occur again may well take days or longer.

Imo this update was written by someone who is actually involved in the work. The wording is informative to me. I'd much rather have this than some generic marketing message about valued customers and best possible service to you blah blah.

Samsung

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gzt

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#2814859 17-Nov-2021 20:18

Is this the resolution message for the same incident?

Azure Active Directory - Issues when attempting to authenticate - Mitigated (Tracking ID SVT2-VCZ)
Summary of Impact: Between at 20:20 UTC on 16 Nov 2021 and 05:00 UTC on 17 Nov 2021, you were identified as a customer using Azure Active Directory External Identities who may have experienced issues when attempting to authenticate.

Preliminary Root Cause: We determined that an outbound port exhaustion led to service latency and failures.

Mitigation: We have scaled up the service capacity to mitigate this issue.

Next steps: We will continue to investigate to establish the full root cause and prevent future occurrences.

PolicyGuy

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#2814886 17-Nov-2021 21:06

Behodar:

As per Sir Humphrey, "under consideration" means we've lost the file, and "under active consideration" means we're trying to find it.

And "under urgent and active consideration" means we've found the file and someone will have a look at it after lunch or maybe tomorrow

😆