Red Sea Cable Cut Disrupts Microsoft Cloud Services
A significant outage affecting a submarine communications cable in the Red Sea is causing performance degradation for Microsoft cloud services in Asia, the Middle East, adn Europe, according to reports surfacing this week. The incident, impacting a key segment of the Asia-africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) cable, began impacting connectivity on Wednesday, March 6, 2024, and is still undergoing repairs.
The AAE-1 cable, stretching over 15,000 kilometers, is a crucial artery for internet traffic between europe and Asia. While the precise cause of the disruption remains under investigation,initial reports suggest damage sustained by the cable in the red Sea,a region experiencing heightened geopolitical tensions and increased attacks on maritime infrastructure.Microsoft confirmed the issue in a statement posted on its service health dashboard, noting “degraded performance” for Azure services and other Microsoft 365 applications.
The outage highlights the vulnerability of the global internet infrastructure, which relies heavily on a network of undersea cables. These cables, frequently enough laid across politically sensitive areas, are susceptible to accidental damage from ship anchors, natural disasters, and deliberate attacks. Redundancy is built into the system, but the AAE-1 cable carries a considerable volume of data, and its partial failure is creating noticeable slowdowns for users reliant on Microsoft’s cloud offerings.
Repairing submarine cables is a complex and time-consuming process, typically involving specialized ships equipped with the necessary tools and expertise.While Microsoft has rerouted traffic through choice routes, full restoration of service is expected to take several weeks.
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