GC recently began a novel approach that gives a reasonable facsimile of 7 X 24 service without overly burdening IT staff. When something goes down, Big Brother then uses a sophisticated set of rules to page and email the appropriate people and then notify them again when service is restored. Equally important to the success of the system is the training and documentation that went into ensuring team members would be able to restart services that had failed. Each member of the team has been trained to restart any system on campus and documentation has been upgraded to make sure that it is accurate and comprehensive. For major problems, the employee responsible for the service is still called in, but on the whole, the new system means more nights of uninterrupted sleep for ITS staff.
Early indications are that the program is a success.
Problems are typically flagged within five minutes and promptly dealt with. In April, when there were Netware Server issues, though services did go down, ITS staff were promptly dispatched and got them back online as quickly as possible. Sign up here.