Overview

• Microsoft reported a service degradation early Saturday after multiple international subsea cables were severed in the Red Sea.
• The interruption primarily affects traffic between Asia and Europe that transits through the Middle East, resulting in higher-than-normal latency.
• Engineering teams have shifted flows to diverse capacity and are continuously rebalancing and optimizing routing to reduce customer impact.
• Repairs to undersea fiber typically take time, and industry sources say restoration work can extend for weeks due to technical and logistical complexity.
• As of 6:30 p.m. ET Saturday, Microsoft’s status page showed no Azure issues detected, though the company has not indicated that the damaged cables are repaired.