Azure maintenance mess disrupts hybrid clouds, VPNs, cloudy VMware services
Microsoft broke its own cloud but isn’t sure how
Microsoft has warned customers of ExpressRoute Gateway, VPN Gateway, and Azure VMware services that they may experience network connectivity issues and difficulty managing networks. The company has paused infrastructure servicing related to the problem, which began at 20:30 UTC on 30 September 2026. ExpressRoute Gateway links on-premises networks to virtual networks in Azure, while Azure VPN Gateway establishes a secure connection between on-premises infrastructure and Azure.
Azure VMware Service enables building a hybrid cloud using VMware. The incident has affected 18 Azure regions, including West US, West US 3, North Europe, and several others. Microsoft is currently observing recovery progress, but some VPN Gateways have reduced redundancy. Engineering teams are restoring affected network management components, but the root cause remains unknown.
Microsoft is investigating and suspects a link to infrastructure operating system servicing activity. Updates will follow as new information becomes available.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
