On Tuesday, the Malta Business Registry (MBR) issued a warning that the cloud infrastructure it uses has been affected by an ongoing global outage.
“We hope that the matter will be resolved as soon as possible,” the team at MBR wrote.
A quick search on the MBR platform reveals that the website is still functional. However, features leading to its recently launched Business Automation Registry Online System (BAROS) appear to be impacted.
The new system, based on blockchain technology, includes a facility to register corporate accounts and an application for a qualified digital signature so that professionals can continue to sign with the same force of normal ink and with the same responsibility.
Since 2020, Government, through the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA), introduced the adoption of Microsoft Technology platform 'Microsoft 365' for all its employees and the Public Service Administration.
The system’s FAQ document, found on the MBR website, through a step-by-step system that facilitates access to clients, indicates that the new system makes use of cloud infrastructure on Microsoft 365.
Although not confirming directly the details behind the outage, simultaneously Azure has reported network infrastructure issues.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform with 200 products and cloud services including computing, storage and networking.
The issues are said to have started at 2pm (12:00 UTC) with Microsoft services being impacted globally including in Europe.
On its website, Microsoft stated that it has multiple engineering teams engaged to diagnose and resolve the issue swiftly.
“We’ve identified multiple workstreams and are working to mitigate impacted workstreams by performing failover operations,” Microsoft said in its most recent update.
This comes a few days after two simultaneous global IT outages - including one concerning Azura - wreaked havoc in multiple industries. During that particular day, Azure's outage had the least impact of the two.
About BAROS
To ensure a smooth transition from the previous to the new system, the platform was made available on 31st August 2023, but it was formally launched in March 2024.
Ultimately, the new system aimed at better assisting companies and corporate service providers. For instance, if a client enters all the necessary information, a company can be incorporated within 24 hours.
From November until March 662 companies were incorporated online with more than 80,000 documents submitted.
In May, MBR CEO and Registrar of Companies Geraldine Spiteri Lucas stated that the new system will not go fully online until practitioners are comfortable with the system, “especially for complex transactions.”
