Microsoft To Refund Windows Azure Customers Hit By 12 Hour Outage That Disrupted Xbox Live

Microsoft will refund Windows Azure customers impacted by an outage last week caused by an expired SSL certificate. In a brief blog post, General Manager Steven Martin cited the scope of the attack as the reason for refund.

The Windows Azure Storage outage affected at least 52 services, including Xbox Live on Thursday night and Friday.

Martin wrote:

We executed the repair steps to update the SSL certificate on the impacted clusters and availability was restored to >99% worldwide by 1:00 AM PST on February 23.  At 8:00 PM PST on February 23, we completed the restoration effort and confirmed full availability worldwide. Given the scope of the outage, we will proactively provide credits to impacted customers in accordance with our SLA. The credit will be reflected on a subsequent invoice.

Microsoft is doing a root cause analysis (RCA) of the disruption, including steps to help prevent any future reoccurrence. Martin writes that the RCA will be posted on the blog as soon as it is available.