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On-call Rotation

A schedule that assigns specific team members to be responsible for responding to incidents outside of normal business hours.

Categorydev

Overview

On-call rotations ensure that critical services are supported 24/7. In a DevOps culture, 'you build it, you run it' often means that developers participate in the on-call rotation for the services they own.

Key Concepts

  • Primary/Secondary: Having a backup person in case the primary is unavailable.
  • Escalation Policy: Rules for who to contact if the on-call person doesn't respond or needs help.
  • Handover: A meeting to discuss any issues that occurred during the previous shift.

Best Practices

  • Fairness: Rotating the schedule to avoid burnout.
  • Compensation: Providing extra pay or time off for on-call duties.
  • Actionable Alerts: Ensuring that on-call engineers are only woken up for critical, actionable issues.

Related Terms

Alerting