Microsoft initiated infrastructure maintenance on September 30, 2026, at 20:30 UTC, which resulted in widespread service disruptions. The incident affected Azure VMware, ExpressRoute Gateway, and VPN Gateway services across 18 global regions, including locations in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
The company stated that the issues stem from maintenance activities on the infrastructure operating system, though the exact cause remains unidentified. The disruption caused network connectivity failures and management operation errors. Microsoft halted the maintenance work following the onset of these technical problems.
By 23:13 UTC, the company reported that it was monitoring the recovery of ExpressRoute gateways. While some VPN gateways experienced reduced redundancy rather than total connection loss, certain network management components failed to recover automatically. Engineering teams are currently restoring functionality using alternative instances.
The list of affected regions includes West US, West US 3, North Europe, West Europe, France Central, UK West, UK South, Switzerland North, Southeast Asia, East Asia, West Japan, Korea Central, South Africa North, UAE North, Mexico Central, Germany North, South India, and Jio India Central.
