Azure stumbles in Western Europe, Microsoft blames 'thermal event'

Microsoft has warned of a “thermal event” impacting Azure users in its West Europe region, and perhaps elsewhere. A status update time-stamped 2249 UTC on November 5th advises that as of 1700 UTC on the same day, “a subset of customers in the West Europe region may experience service disruptions or degraded performance across …

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

If course it was a "thermal event" in that Microsoft products are steaming piles of crap! ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

A "thermal event" as the geographic area progresses through autumn into winter. Yeah, ambient is quite a bit cooler than it was 4 months ago. Makes me think they had a cooler failure, or took one down for maintenance and hadn't worked out the loads correctly.

Do they still recommend at least N+1 cooling for cloud computing? Or did they think "if we get a failure, we'll just shift the workload elsewhere" without checking that it was a technically feasible plan?

[An_Old_Dog]

Battery Backup Systems?

Did Microsoft buy some slightly-used battery backup units from OVH at "fire sale" prices?

Icon, because ...

[Korev]

Re: Battery Backup Systems?

A pint for "Fire sale"

[Tron]

So is there an automated compensation system in place for this?

Just kidding. Go back to polishing your shackles.

[xyz]

It's all getting a bit silly

It's becoming obvious that the architecture cannot support the required level of corporate greed. Clouds are a bit smelly.

[Pascal Monett]

a thermal event

So, basically you're admitting that you couldn't be arsed to implement the maximum required cooling for your poor excuse of a money-grabbing platform.

Well done, Redmond. You continue to demonstrate how incompetent you are.

[deadlockvictim]

Dominoes

The apt metaphor here is that of dominoes.

One thing goes, which triggers a cascade, which ends up, at best, offering degraded performance (while charging non-degraded fees) and, at worst, leaves potentially vital services unavailable for days.

Imagine what will happen if the UK's NHS goes Azure (or AWS, for that matter).

Maybe, Microsoft, you shouldn't be following such a rent-seeking approach to data-centres and instead offering a good service, albeit with lower profit margins?

[DCdave]

Re: Dominoes

If the NHS were to go Azure they'd have to upgrade to at least Server 2012 first.

[Gort99]

Re: Dominoes

Are the XP and Windows 7 desktops going to be compatible with that?

[graemep]

Re: Dominoes

The NHS already uses AWS very heavily.

If you read the documentation for connecting third party systems the NHS APIs run on AWS. So pharmacies, any GPs running their own systems (none of the ones around here) etc. will connect through AWS.

All the GPs where I live used an SaaS (provided Blinx Healthcare) that runs on AWS.

I think the NHS web app and mobile app backends run on AWS too.

[The Original Steve]

Re: Dominoes

NHSMail and the core spine is all Azure / M365.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Dominoes

"'Lower profit margins'? You make noise, make talk-talk sounds, but we not understand." -- Microsoft Board of Directors.

[IanRS]

Somebody got lucky with a firework rocket.

The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system.

[Doctor Syntax]

Did the thermal invent produce smoke?

[LessWileyCoyote]

A bit of magic smoke escaped.

[JWLong]

Did the thermal invent produce smoke?

No, just hot air, as is expected from MS...............

[heyrick]

Lots of computers plus AI workloads equals great steaming piles of.......

[desht]

Remember, folks

The cloud is just someone else's insufficiently cooled computer.

[Excused Boots]

Sorry but I've much lost count. Is it Microsoft 361 or Microsoft 359 yet?

[oldandgrey]

Thermal Event?

Source: The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

https://cdn.knmi.nl/knmi/map/page/klimatologie/grafieken/maand/txgn260.png