Could Microsoft get drunk in a brewery?
Microsoft Office 365, Azure portals offline for many users in Europe
Microsoft's Office 365 service has gone offline for many users in the UK and Europe, though the cause and extent of the outage is not yet known. Neither the Office 365 portal, nor the Azure management portal is available at the time of writing, though Microsoft's status page says everything is fine. Everthing is fine says …
COMMENTS
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:34 GMT Simon 4
Hosted Exchange
I have been repeatedly offered Office 365 from two different providers I use for hosted Exchange.
I always refuse.
My exchange providers run their own servers, whereas MS run the 365 servers. All they are is resellers of the 365 service.
So for the same reason I won't use Google Mail or apps, I won't use Office 365. Who do I call and yell at when it's not working? Where will the accountability be?
And if I was selecting services for clients... when they call and yell at me, who am I supposed to yell at?
You'll never know where your email is hosted with 365. With hosted Exchange, it's much more transparant.
The problems I had with billing snafus on 365 just for gaining use of applications that we'd paid for - total nightmare. Would never want that dire level of communication when chasing a fix for downed email servers.
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Friday 4th December 2015 03:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Here you go M$
What you don't get is the old "familiarity breeds contempt" meme. They're, whoever they are, quite used to watching you flail around at trying something/anything to bring something/anything to bring the systems back online. What they haven't experienced yet is the
expertsPro's from Dover doing the same thang when it's their turn in the barrel.After the first (few) times either they'll get used to it [not likely], revert to type or in other words put you back on the job [yea, right], or figure out a way that "it's your fault anyway" [most likely]. Have a resume ready in all of the above scenarios.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 10:49 GMT Greg D
Fucked for us too....I would love to have avoided this
But I'm surrounded by a management team of penny pinchers and "architects" that think they know what they are doing (they don't, they are lazy fucks - "designed" a system that basically meant not designing anything).
I have been STAUNCHLY against using Office 365 since the first day someone on my team mentioned it. This is just one of a few outages recently and other shitty problems that would never have occurred had we stayed on-prem.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 14:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Fucked for us too....I would love to have avoided this
Totally agree with you! We currently run Exchange 2010 and Office 2010 so will be looking at upgrading next year or maybe stretch to the year after. Colleagues at a closely related business recently migrated from Exchange and Office 2007 to hosted 365 and so we saw an email from their support guys this morning detailing issues. First thing my boss says was "more ammunition to management to not go the hosted route!" ALL of the main players in cloud service have been hit with issues, be it Google, Amazon or Microsoft. Plus you could be effected if you lost your internet connection for any reason (some twonk dug up a fibre, etc) So we will be sticking with an on the premises soloution!
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 23:32 GMT Tezfair
Re: Fucked for us too....I would love to have avoided this
Last weekend I installed a 60 user Exchange 2016 server at a customers. Didn't need to be super fast as all the staff are external. 365 on paper seemed the best way to go, but on the basis that a hosted exchange account was around £6 a month per user, or £360 per month, or £4320 per year, their little system cost £10k, that also includes server 2012r2 + 60 device CALs, Exchange + 60 CALS and Symantec SMSMSE, 60 Licenses. They will now support Outlooks from 2010 right through to the next 2 versions, basically a good 10 years of service. (although the physical server might not last that long, but exchange has been virtualized)
So on March 2018 they will hit the point where having an onprem becomes cost effective.
Oh, and they have 2Tb set aside for their mailboxes, not the 25Gb per mailbox limit that 365 imposes (althought I have set a cap of 30Gb for the time being, but even that looks like it would take 8 years to reach with most accounts that I exported)
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Friday 4th December 2015 09:11 GMT Yag
Re: Fucked for us too....I would love to have avoided this
Lots of unacounted costs in your short estimation.
You should factor at least the cost of the power for the server, the associated temperature control system and the cost of the physical server room (the last two might be very low if there were already a server room on premise)
However, I'm pretty sure it'll still be far more cost effective than the cloudy based solution.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:12 GMT Noel Morgan
Re: not panicking
Not really.
Haven't found my workload lessening since moving. The only thing that has got less is the pressure.
Still have accounts to create, mail to manage and all the other normal things to do, just doing it on a different platform.
As to the argument that someone else will be able to do my job, true, but I know have 'cloud migration' experience which means I should be able to get a job easier somewhere else too.
The world moves on.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:09 GMT nematoad
"...what's the point of having a status page if it doesn't actually tell you the current status."
I think you are missing the point.
The status page obviously isn't for the users otherwise they would always be able to see it. No, this is strictly for MS's use. It's there to demonstrate to the higher echelons that everything is working as intended.
Cynical I know, but it may contain a piece of the truth.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:33 GMT Necronomnomnomicon
Normally I'd be
But Microsoft's Status page has been surprisingly good for us (just passed three months on O365). By which, I mean that for the first two and a half months there were yellow alerts everywhere, different ones every week, and they were for the merest trifles, nearly all of which didn't affect us but which were genuinely useful for the few that did. So good that it's a genuine letdown this has been missed off the status page, rather than business as usual.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:16 GMT Triggerfish
but what's the point of having a status page if it doesn't actually tell you the current status.
Got to be better than Talk Talks where you have to connect to the web page, at which point it tells you your internet connection is working. Always thought there was a sly genius in that status page.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:04 GMT timhowarduk
Glorious Irony
The last thing I was doing yesterday was reworking our risk management plan. Yep, I saved the file on OneDrive for business.
The final item we discussed last night was impact on the organisation if Office365 cloud services were offline for various lengths of time.
This morning, of course I can't open the risk management spreadsheet we were working on from the web portal. Due to unlucky coincidence the sync client also fell over yesterday and I didn't notice, so I don't have the usual offline copy to carry on working either.
The irony of all this is not lost on me!
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
After migrating our training environment from local hosted using citrix to azure hosted using remoteapp we went through months of testing. Several conference calls with people and 2 webex sessions to bash test the environment.
Everything was working fine.
our VERY FIRST customer we have training on this new environment scheduled for today has now given us huge embarrassment. The customers want a refund, the trainers don't want to use the system anymore and I am also getting moaned at for something out of my control.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:24 GMT TS15
How's this for irony... this seems to have happened on the same morning that our local Exchange 2013 box has decided to die thanks to an Active Directory problem capable of causing Win2012 server to bluescreen..
A small part of me is vaguely reassured that MS's own platforms, running under their own control, are just as fragile as on-premise installations... that said, it would be rather nice if things just worked (and continued to do so) sometimes!
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:53 GMT SImon Hobson
> ... by pointing aadg.windows.net.nsatc.net at their US servers ...
That's one of those "hmm" statements and it took me a while to figure out why I was thinking about it quite so much.
In the "Post Snowden" world, Microsoft has made a big think of having regional services - so for example customers in the UK can be assured that their data will be held in Europe and safe from the USA.
Can anyone tell me what I'm missing here ?
If "someone" has access to a user's login then they have access to that user's data.
If that "someone" has access to the Active Directory holding that user's account details, then that gives them access to the user's login - even if they have to reset the password to do it.
If that Active Directory is being run on a server in the US (or under the control of a US entity) then that means that "someone" can knock on the door, "instruct" someone to give them access and "by the way, don't mention this to anyone".
So a UK customer is secure from US access to their data ? I'm not so sure.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 11:24 GMT s. pam
It's raining turds and birds
Oh gee what a surprise -- I can't get into email for the company I'm contracting to due to MSFT. I've been trying to get into their email for 2 hours with little luck, even tried reboots, different browsers.
I guess I'll go remove the caulk in my shower that's leaking then.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 12:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
lare you feeling lucky
AC - as will be obv from below
I log in (& then out, when finished ) of 365 in the nice approved company secure way
Colleagues who take the (should not be done according to the company) method of having the keep me always logged in (or whatever teh exact wording is) box, have had no problems getting onto office 365 cloud hosted files.
I, on the other hand, just left in login limbo.
So, people who stayed logged in from yesterday probably OK.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 12:49 GMT steamrunner
Swings and roundabouts
It's all swings and roundabouts really. It's all IT, where ever it is. It *will* fail.
Doesn't really matter if you have Office 365, Hosted Exchange with someone, or your own on-premises server(s) — at some point, things will go FUBAR. Yes, you may have control to fix it if it's your own estate, but that's assuming you have the nous to do so, the problem is minor (or you have damn good backups and DR and can be arsed to use it even for an outage of just a couple of hours) and the problem at hand doesn't take forever to fix. Someone will still be screaming at you.
It then becomes a percentages game. If you want a lower percentage chance of outage than your neighbours, then you engage brain cells and spend more money. The business types amongst us are familiar with the phrase "cost vs risk". In the case of Office 365 there are, for example, failover/DR solutions available from non-related third-parties to keep your email moving if Microsoft goes splat. Not ideal, not perfect, but it keeps you moving for those crucial moments.
In short: you calculates your need, you knows your risks, you pays your money, and you takes your lumps. Stop moaning that you skipped one of the first three and don't now like the fourth.
SB.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 12:59 GMT TRT
What outage? I've not heard anything...
In the event of a service outage, my inbox is usually pinging away like a stripper's knicker elastic on payday.
*Checks job tickets*
No open job tickets. Great system that. An authenticated user can hit a panic button and it generates one automatically.
*checks eMail*
No users typing in ALL CAPS at me. No one has sent me any emails for the last few hours, for that matter. No news is good news.
*checks Yammer*
Nope. Not a sausage.
*checks Skype*
Nope. Nothing doing.
*Checks secure authenticated VOIP phone*
Nada.
What about the POTS over copper? No, forgot, that was removed as a cost saving measure just after they move everything to Microsoft cloud services.
*Looks at protocol flowchart*
Mmmm... there's nothing on there about "Had an email is the last three hours? - No - Leave cheap and nasty IT accommodation in the butt-end of nowhere on the outskirts of London (that's at least three hours drive away in traffic at this time of day and is 30 minutes walk from a tube station, hence why it's so cheap) so that we can reclaim 14sq m of prime central London office space. Travel to central office and check in with the administrators there in the event that our Microsoft / Azure / Office365 based communications has failed." They left that contingent out of the troubleshooting flowchart.
Ahhhhh! Peace and quiet. Mine's the one with milk, no sugar.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 13:04 GMT future research
Oh well this is all progress.
I ran postfix for 6 years with no problems. (except the odd SDSL connection failure)
Then Exchange on premise for almost 3 years, had about a week of issues, slowness and outlook connection problems (e-mail still moving fine, 99.85%, only a problem due to load in office hours) due to migration to newer hardware but performed worst.
Office 365 for 3 days, and already 3 hours of problems. 96%
That's progress for you.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 13:43 GMT sawatts
Outlook App for Android
Right! Explains why Outlook App for Android kept asking me to re-enter my password, and then hanging. Appeared to be sorted by around 1230hrs.
However, while this was going on I couldn't use the app to access any other account (non-Microsoft) on it. This seems like a critical failure in the app design.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 13:56 GMT David Lawton
I'm not a cloud fan at least not Microsoft's, OneDrive for Business anyone? What an absolute mess that is, yet Dropbox seem to manage it fine, but i've been forced that way because things such as Office for iPad require it, and since we are already paying for it we may as well move our Exchange over to 365.
I will give Microsoft some credit , Onenote is a fantastic product and absolutely love it now its cross platform (Mac, Windows, iOS and Android), but i'm guessing that has been effected by this outage.
If only i could have the same functionality as a private self hosted cloud.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 14:09 GMT Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese
Office 365 vs Office
I just went through an exercise with a local community organisation that I'm involved with outside work, specifying a new laptop and supporting software.
"Why would we want to spend more money of MS Office, when this voucher we got with the laptop says we can get Office 365 for less?" they asked.
The scenarios that I used when explaining my answer was very much like what's described in this article
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 14:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Small business cloud
So if you want some idea of small business cloud.
Mentioning this as we use Office 365 - staying anonymous.
Recent discussion to use one drive, as google drive is a bit clunky (but useful for techs to load up stuff, us to put CADs on for them etc).
Since one drive has gone down - the comment was well good job we don't use that then. Pointing out google docs has the same risks has just been met with yes but that has never gone down.
Asking if we are making PM's etc make sure that files uploaded to the cloud are also all downloaded to the NAS as part of the end of a project and to ensure we have a proper backup of it someone - "I don't know I suppose they do".
Man glad I am bottom rung lemon and just saving up for my FU money to leave.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 14:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
not to sound smug..
but this is why we chose to put our data very very close to the cloud and not actually in the cloud. We leverage the compute by the data is ours. At times like this we tweak a buttons, flick a few nobs, decide what to dump and what to keep and bring essentials back in house.
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 15:14 GMT steamnut
SNAFU
I have lost count of the number of Azure/365 service outages there have been this year but even one is too many if your business depends on it.
How long before someone challenges M$'s excessively complicated EULA which is essence says you don't own what you have paid for and, if it doesn't work, you cannot sue us?
We need a large company with a big legal budget to go after M$. Even though I'm against the EU, this is one area they could get involved except I am concerned how embedded M$ is in the EU...
The only clouds we are using are our own; at least we know who to fire is it all goes wrong...
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 18:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
The first time ever they're compliant with Data Protection then..
I'm impressed by Microsoft's sudden commitment to EU Data Protection - even forcing their clients into compliance. Take that, Google!
Joking aside, thank you for confirming that a local install is still best.
So glad I use LibreOffice :)
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Thursday 3rd December 2015 19:01 GMT Chika
Broccoli
A few weeks ago, I was taking part in an interview for a job doing support for a company that specialised in a particular software product (I won't name any names for obvious reasons). One thing that I noticed was that pretty much everything that they did was cloud based, so one question I brought up was what the company did to cover themselves in the case of an outage.
I'm not sure if they really understood where I was coming from but as a long term support operative for local based servers and for locally based SAN storage, I knew full well that a dodgy server had its effects on customers but that we could normally alleviate the problem one way or another, often without having to wait for somebody to sort out a system somewhere in the "cloud". More importantly we could pinpoint the fault and often give an idea of how long it would be before we could bring the affected system back online.
This was because the various points of failure that were likely to occur were onsite. With this whole business with Azure/O365, the various points of failure are out of the control of the customers' IT, whether it is an Internet fail, a DDoS or a malfunction at the farm. If your entire system is out on a cloud somewhere and that cloud suddenly evaporates, apart from fielding hordes of complaints from exasperated users, what do you do?
Oh yes, I also managed to sprain my ankle on the way to the interview. Suffice to say that I was not impressed at all (and have spent much of the last couple of weeks in bed trying to rest it, mostly because standing up was extremely painful.)