In this Golden Nugget, Earl Duby unpacks the complex aftermath of the recent CrowdStrike and Microsoft Azure outages. The web of IT failures that led to significant disruptions, including major delays and cancellations in airline operations, notably affecting Delta Airlines.
Earl talks about the ongoing legal battle where Delta is suing Microsoft for a staggering $500 million, citing the severe impact of these outages on their operations. Microsoft is counterclaiming, blaming Delta’s outdated technology for the meltdown.
This is a prime example of technical dept and the consequences of it, if you want to learn more about technical dept give us a call at (800) 837 GOLD [4653].
Link to the full article:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/06/business/microsoft-crowdstrike-outage-delta/index.html
Transcript:
0:00) All right, welcome back. This is the latest episode of Golden Nuggets. I’m Earl (0:10) Duby.
Now, I got Jackie over here behind the camera here. She doesn’t like to make (0:16) an appearance, but Jackie, I would like to point out that I was reading this article (0:20) today, and this is amazing. You know about the the CrowdStrike outage that (0:26) happened a few weeks ago, right? So there were actually two events that were (0:31) happening simultaneously.
So you had an Azure outage, so Microsoft’s cloud (0:36) platform was experiencing some issues, and then right after that, (0:40) like hours after this, the CrowdStrike flawed update got pushed out, and then (0:47) that caused a bunch of issues with Windows machines. So Windows was having, (0:51) you know, their issues. Microsoft was having Azure issues, and all this was (0:56) happening early Friday morning, and then we all know how that, you know, worked out (1:01) with the airlines, you know, delaying flights, canceling flights.
People were (1:06) hanging out in cities that they didn’t want to be in for an extra two or three(1:10) days as all of this stuff was getting sorted out. So the cool thing, and the (1:15) only reason I’m bringing this back up, because I know this thing has been hashed (1:18) to death, you know, back then. Even Jackie was tired of hearing about it, and she’s (1:22) not even a technologist.
But so we know that all that was happening, but the (1:28) interesting thing that is bringing this back to light is the fact that, you know, (1:33) Delta is now, because of all these delays and flights being canceled, and, you know, (1:39) I imagine, I can just imagine the number of frequent flyer miles that they had to (1:44) award to people through all of this just to keep their customers happy. So at the (1:49) end of the day, Delta is suing Microsoft for about 500 million dollars. So that’s(1:55) the impact of all of this IT outage on just on Delta.
I mean, overall, I think (2:04) they were saying that, and this was several days ago, they said that the (2:07) overall economic impact of this was going to be 5.4 billion dollars, and I’m (2:13) sure it’s only gotten higher since then, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s six (2:18) or seven billion dollars worth of economic impact. But again, the thing I (2:24) want to talk about today is this article that I just read on a CNN (2:28) business, and we’ll put a link to this article in the notes here, but so(2:36) Microsoft is now countering to Delta that it’s actually Delta’s fault that (2:43) they had all these outages because, and here’s the headline, you can see it (2:48) right here, Microsoft lashes out at Delta, your ancient tech caused the service (2:53) meltdown. So I find this fascinating because, you know, this has been happening (2:58) for years and years and years, you know, some software will push an update and (3:04) then, you know, some system won’t be able to take the update and it’ll crash, and (3:09) then everyone complains about the software update, when in fact, they should (3:13) actually be looking at the system that is trying to be updated, because chances (3:18) are you’re trying to push an update to old dilapidated hardware and it just (3:23) can’t take it and it crashes and burns and then, you know, systems fail and (3:28) everyone’s all up in arms.
So I think this is actually pretty cool for (3:33) me to see that, you know, on the one hand Delta comes out and says, hey, you know, (3:39) we had this big impact, it’s Microsoft’s fault, and then, you know, Microsoft is (3:45) coming back at it and saying, no, this is because you haven’t updated your (3:48) systems for so long, and the reason that this is kind of great for me is, you(3:56) know, I’ve been pushing vulnerability management and having proper (3:59) vulnerability management practices for years, you know, like to me, you (4:05) really can’t run an IT organization unless you know where your flaws (4:10) are at, where your open windows, where your open doors, where your end-of-life (4:14) servers, where your, you know, applications missing critical updates. (4:20) You have to know this stuff. I don’t know how you can run an IT organization if (4:24) you don’t know these things, and this is a perfect example of what happens when (4:29) you don’t take care of your environment.
So I’m gonna go out on a limb and say (4:34) that Microsoft is probably right, that Delta hasn’t been keeping their systems (4:39) up to date, and that they are running end-of-life systems, and then this, you (4:45) know, update comes along, you know, it’s a CrowdStrike update, it’s a Microsoft (4:50) update, it’s a, you know, who-knows-what update, but if your systems aren’t built(4:57) or current enough to handle those updates, you know, that tech debt, (5:03) technology debt, is gonna catch up to you eventually, so if you are skimping on (5:09) doing updates and not keeping your systems up to date, and that can be on (5:13) the hardware side or it could be on the the software and application side, you (5:18) know, this is what’s gonna happen, and I think it’s gonna be pretty interesting to (5:23) see how this plays out because you know it’s gonna go to court, you know, so (5:27) Delta is gonna sue Microsoft, Microsoft’s gonna counter back and say you’re (5:32) at least partially to blame because you’re not keeping your systems up to (5:36) date, somehow that’s gonna get adjudicated, and it’ll be interesting to (5:41) see if Microsoft can deflect five hundred million dollars worth of a (5:47) lawsuit based on the fact that Delta, its customer, is not keeping its systems up (5:53) to date, and I would really like to follow this closely because I think this (5:58) is an example that all people that manage systems need to keep track of. As we get (6:05) more reliant on software, we’re more reliant on automatic updates, because you (6:10) think about your Windows patches, you probably have that on auto update, think (6:14) about your antivirus updates, all of those are on auto update, they’re (6:18) pushing those things out whenever they they find new threats and they’re (6:22) constantly getting you that data or those updates quickly, so your life is already (6:28) on some sort of auto update schedule, that’s gonna make it even more critical (6:35) to make sure that your underlying systems and hardware are up to date, (6:39) patched, and ready to go, so keep an eye on this story. In the meantime, it’s a (6:44) rough world out there, stay safe, and I’ll see you next time for our next (6:48) Golden Nugget.
Thank you.
