Working practice
On-call rotation
A published schedule of who responds to incidents outside working hours.
Definition
An arrangement where named people take turns being reachable for urgent problems outside normal hours, with defined response times and compensation. It is the operational counterpart to an availability commitment.
Why it matters
A rotation of fewer than four or five people burns them out and then loses them, which costs more than the cover was worth. Check how on-call is paid and how often it fires. A rota that pages every night is not an on-call problem, it is a reliability problem wearing on-call as a bandage.
Related
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Escalation path
The named route for raising something that is not being resolved.
Read the definition ›Service level agreement (SLA)
Measurable commitments about response, resolution or availability.
Read the definition ›Follow-the-sun
Passing work between time zones so it never stops.
Read the definition ›Runbook
Step-by-step instructions for operating and fixing a system.
Read the definition ›Next step
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