Microsoft Azure hit by fibre cuts in Red Sea

Microsoft’s Azure cloud service has been hit by disruptions after undersea fibre cables were cut in the Red Sea, forcing the company to reroute internet traffic and leaving users facing slower speeds and delays, the tech gian said on Saturday.

The company said that its Azure users may face increased delays.

Traffic passing through the Middle East, either starting in or destined for Asia or Europe, may experience further disruptions, the company said in a service health status update for its Azure platform.

“Undersea fibre cuts can take time to repair, so we will continue to monitor, rebalance, and optimise routing to reduce the impact on customers in the meantime. We will provide daily updates, or sooner if conditions change,” Microsoft said.

As a result of the disruption, Azure — the world’s second-largest cloud provider after Amazon’s AWS — has been forced to reroute traffic through alternate paths, causing higher-than-normal delays.