Azure Failure Was a Leap Year Glitch

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Azure Failure Was a Leap Year Glitch

Posted by timothy on Thursday March 1, 2012 @03:30AM from the azure-wish-they'd-looked-at-a-calendar dept.

judgecorp writes "Microsoft's Windows Azure cloud service was down much of yesterday, and the cause was a leap year bug as the service failed to handle the 29th day of February. Faults propagated making this a severe outage for many customers, including the UK Government's recently launched G-cloud service."

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Who could have foreseen a leap year coming? by elrous0 · 2012-03-01 03:30 · Score: 5, Funny

Seriously, if my American high school education taught me nothing else, it was that those things only come along like every 100 years or something.

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SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1. Re:Who could have foreseen a leap year coming? by tripleevenfall · 2012-03-01 03:39 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Save us, Captain Obvious! *swoons* :P
2. Re:Who could have foreseen a leap year coming? by Kamiza+Ikioi · 2012-03-01 03:50 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  In all fairness, Microsoft never figured anyone would still be using this service by the time a leap year rolled around.
  
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  I8-D
3. Re:Who could have foreseen a leap year coming? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-01 05:38 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  In all fairness, Microsoft never figured anyone would still be using this service by the time a leap year rolled around.
  I work on the Azure team and I can confirm this.
4. Re:Who could have foreseen a leap year coming? by Alsee · 2012-03-01 10:12 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Microsoft has solved the problem and applied a patch to their systems.
  The new patch is anticipated to keep the service up and stable for least 4 years.
  -
  
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  - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Re:TCO TIC by tripleevenfall · 2012-03-01 03:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Obviously you didn't inform yourself with the very helpful and informative "Get The Facts" materials Microsoft provided us with a few years ago. If you had you would know how much higher the TCO of Linux on the server is even after a massive outage.
Same Story / Different Day by DownWithTheMan · 2012-03-01 03:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Didn't this happen last leap year to the Zunes... oh yeah...
1. Re:Same Story / Different Day by robthebloke · 2012-03-01 04:21 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Like how to brush the problem under the carpet for another 4 years?
2. Re:Same Story / Different Day by John+Hasler · 2012-03-01 04:36 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Well, we knew it was a Microsoft product so we knew they bought it from someone.
  
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  Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
3. Re:Same Story / Different Day by ekimminau · 2012-03-01 07:06 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  According to Microsoft all time started on Jan 1, 0001.
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.datetime.ticks.aspx
  No fricking wonder the "system idle process" uses 19% of a cpu. The OS is counting to a billion every second.
  Ooops. But they still lots of things in 32bit land, too.
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.datetime.aspx
  
  --
  Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
28 days by ichthus · 2012-03-01 03:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, this is all because 28 days in February ought to be enough for everyone.

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sig: sauer
1. Re:28 days by davidbrit2 · 2012-03-01 04:16 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I always remember to put DEVICEHIGH=FEB.SYS into my config.sys every four years.
In a new press conference.. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-01 03:37 · Score: 5, Funny

Microsoft has told the press that they don't expect the Azure cloud service to fail again for years. In an unrelated schedule change, a down-for-maintenance slot was scheduled 4 years in advance.
office in the cloud by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-01 03:39 · Score: 5, Funny

It's sold as Office 365 not Office 366
Only Happens Every 4 Years by trongey · 2012-03-01 03:53 · Score: 5, Funny

It's not Micorsoft's fault; they're a publicly traded company so they can't think about multi-year events. They're prohibited from considering anything that is beyond the next fiscal quarter.

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You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Re:A leap year issue? Are you SERIOUS? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-01 04:11 · Score: 3, Funny

Shouldn't 'pathetic' be in uppercase?
Re:Dumb people never learn by Tanktalus · 2012-03-01 04:21 · Score: 4, Funny

Hey! My MS4000 keyboard and MS mouse are working jut fine.
Attention Microsoft: by Howard+Beale · 2012-03-01 04:26 · Score: 5, Funny

The following are leap years: 2016 2020 2024 2028 2032 2036 2040 You have been warned. After that, I'll probably be dead, so I won't care (unless Microsoft starts making pacemakers, which may end it for me...).
1. Re:Attention Microsoft: by forkfail · 2012-03-01 04:41 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  The thought of an MS pacemaker EULA is pretty scary....
  
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  Check your premises.
Re:What is it with Microsoft and Leap Year? by egamma · 2012-03-01 04:28 · Score: 2, Funny

Now, I'm not necessarily a Microsoft apologist, but I have to point out that it wasn't so long ago that other things near and dear to us geeks were experiencing similar problems.
I was trying to run some ant scripts yesterday that interact with an FTP server to delete some files. Those damned files wouldn't get deleted. They weren't even returned from a listing command. As it turns out, I was using a particularly old version of Apache Commons-Net library (this jar file was from 2005) which had a leap-year bug. It simply would not show me files with modification dates of 2/29. I was looking at the FTP server configuration, logging in with other clients, moving and renaming files, and all about ready to break out Wireshark... and then it occurred to me that it was leap day. Hoo-fucking-ray. "touch"ed the file, and sure enough, it was suddenly available. Those are a few hours of my life I'll never get back.
Your post is not anti-Microsoft, so you must be a shill.

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Re:Dumb people never learn by MadKeithV · 2012-03-01 04:32 · Score: 4, Funny

Hey! My MS4000 keyboard and MS mouse are working jut fine.
I see what you did there.
Re:What a shame by TheCRAIGGERS · 2012-03-01 04:53 · Score: 4, Funny

We still see this kind of XXXX coming up every leap year.
We're all adults (or close enough to it, anyway) here. I think we're all capable of seeing the word "shit" without our faces melting like that nazi who peeped in the ark.
My apologies to everyone who is now having their face melt off after reading that previous sentence.