Jeff,

Thanks again for your thoughts.

All of the DBAs, myself included, are given cell phone/pagers with two-way walkie-talkie functionality. I have setup distributions to email all the DBAs, as well as page all the DBAs.

I'm planning to have everyone paged when something goes wrong; however only the person on duty/on call would be responsible for looking into the issue unless he/she is unable to do so for some reason. I will setup a talk group via the phones as well, for instant "conferencing" in of all DBAs the on-duty DBA requires it.

What I'm trying to avoid is the "I thought you were looking into that!" effect that I've seen when multiple people are notified of an issue; sometimes everyone assumes that someone else is looking into it. I'm also trying to strike a good balance between having a good process for business-DBA communications, without taking the human factor out of the equation. As a DBA (and developer/sysadmin/mgr/netadmin/etc.) for many years I appreciate the value of being able to communicate with people outside one's group, and I don't want to deprive the DBA team of that communication.