Microsoft Warns of Azure Latency After Red Sea Cable Damage
The tech giant is rerouting network traffic for users in Asia and Europe after multiple undersea fiber optic cables were cut in a critical digital corridor.
Microsoft Corp. has issued a warning to Azure cloud users, advising them of potential network delays and higher latency after multiple undersea fiber optic cables were damaged in the Red Sea. The disruption affects a critical digital corridor that connects Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, forcing the technology giant to reroute network traffic through alternative pathways.
In a statement on its Azure status page, that previously traversed the Middle East, while assuring users that traffic on other routes remains unaffected. The company's engineers are actively working to mitigate the impact by rebalancing and optimizing data transmission paths. Despite these efforts, rerouting large volumes of data can lead to congestion and degraded performance on the alternative routes.
The Red Sea is a vital chokepoint for global internet traffic, . The damage to this critical infrastructure highlights a significant operational risk for global cloud providers like Azure, which stands as the second-largest cloud platform after Amazon Web Services.
Repairing the damaged subsea cables is a complex and lengthy process, requiring specialized ships and expertise. The process is expected to take weeks and could be further complicated by the ongoing political instability in the region. on the situation to keep its enterprise customers informed as it works to stabilize services and manage the disruption to its global network.