On-call schedule - what kinds?

[marist89]

Originally posted by swiego
A parallel question: how do you publicize your on-call schedules? Up until now everyone has walked to our lone DBA's desk or paged her directly, but with a team forming I would like to transition to a more abstract process that accommodates an on-call rotation. Any recommendations?

This is difficult, especially when you have a one-man shop. You have to be careful not to get your Sr. guy's feathers ruffled, but at the same time get him to realize that you're doing this so he can concentrate on things more crucial to business.

Your users are another story. Users are stupid. Their problem is the most important thing in the company. You'll never get away from having your Sr. guy do something for Hot Mary in accounting. I don't thing you should try to stop that. However, setup an email alias "[email protected]" and let that go to the Sr. guy for awhile. After everybody knows about it, switch it to the group leader and let them start doling out tasks.

Rotate the pager that everybody knows the number to. Sure, the Sr. guy thinks it's his personal pager, but the company pays for it. You'll get resistance at first, but after a month of not getting woken up at 02:00, he'll see the light.

Setup an internal number that works on a schedule. Most corporate phone systems can have a number that rotates based on a schedule. If not, just forward the number to the duty pager.