[rodgerd]

On-call is paid at a weekly rate for being the on-call person. There's an additional bump if you're actually called out, pro-rata on an hourly basis to your salary.

You are required to respond to calls within the SLA, and work on problems until they're fixed (definition of fixed being service restoration - root cause canalysis for complex problems and hence fixes will happen during normal hours) or until you've been working long enough you need to be spelled.

If you're on-call you're still expected to be doing your day job, but production takes priority, and projects are expected to accomodate that.

On-call rotation is generally rotated around teams, so one week in 4 - 8 depending on team size.

[samuellb]

We use a very similar system where I work, except that we have one "extra" person on-call in case the first one gets sick, has a hard disk failure or likewise, or just needs extra help for some reason.

Both people are paid a fixed amount per week + a fixed hourly rate if called out. Weeks with holidays give you double pay. Simple but it seems to work well.