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REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - A Microsoft Website indicates an online storage service for businesses worldwide has "recovered to over 99% availability across all sub-regions."

The problems Friday afternoon were triggered by Microsoft's failure to renew a security certificate which expired.

The outage affected an online service that stores data for a wide range of business customers. The service is called Azure. Microsoft has apologized for the lapse. The Website for the service known as Azure says Microsoft will monitor the systems for another 24 hours and that some customers may still encounter intermittent failures.

The certificate is needed to properly run online services such as Azure which use an "https" protocol to block unauthorized users from accessing information.

Azure's failure illuminates the pitfalls of storing important information in remote data centers. Online storage, often called "cloud computing," has been growing in appeal.