The concept of the site reliability engineer (SRE) was first introduced by Benjamin Treynor of Google in 2003. The objective of an SRE was to minimize the misalignment between software development and operations teams and create a force multiplier that was more effective in rapidly scaling organizations. In his own words,Treynor states that, “[An SRE is] what happens when you ask a software engineer to design an operations function.”
An SRE would typically take ownership of a system and manage its reliability. According to a recent article, SREs are responsible for the, “Availability, latency, performance, efficiency, change management, monitoring, emergency response and capacity planning.” At its core, SREs bring their valuable coding skills to operations to provide more agility to the operations function.
End-to-End Incident Alert Management for Modern SRE Teams
Drive system reliability and minimize downtime by resolving incidents faster
OnPage is built for modern SRE teams. The OnPage system for SRE alerting and on-call management sits at the center of your SRE technology ecosystem, orchestrating the distribution of alerts to the right on-call team member, wherever they are.
OnPage benefits for SRE teams include:
Automation:
Triage and contain system issues by automating the alert distribution and collaboration process between SRE team members and other engineers.
Maximize collective knowledge:
Maximize collective knowledge of resources through inclusive communication and collaboration.
Single-pane visibility into alerts:
Get a single-pane view into all critical alerts originating from monitoring services. Better manage the incident and improve situational awareness.
Improved accountability:
The OnPage system offers performance reports to keep on-call SRE members accountable for their workload. SRE leaders can gain instant visibility into their team’s alert response through the OnPage reporting dashboard. They can also use reporting to ensure that alerts are equitably distributed across the SRE team and that no team member is unfairly exposed to alert fatigue.
OnPage Alert Management for SREs
SREs take ownership of systems and manage their service-level objectives (SLOs). When a SLO is not being met, a monitoring service will generate an incident and automatically trigger a high-priority alert on the OnPage mobile application.
OnPage’s patented “Alert-Until-Read” technology overrides the mute switch on all smartphone devices. This ensures that critical alerts reach the right on-call engineer at the right time. OnPage notifies the responder in real time using alerting policies, routing rules and digital on-call schedules.
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Integrate With Any System via Email, Webhooks and Custom APIs
OnPage extends the capabilities of leading SRE solutions across security platforms,monitoring systems, ITSM tools and more! These powerful integrationshelp mobilize the right teams in real time while empowering SREs with the collaboration tools they need to resolve service issues quickly.
Frictionless Team Collaboration
SREs require a frictionless collaboration experience to resolve incidents before they impact valuable customers. SREs can leverage the OnPage mobile app to securely message and communicate with colleagues in real time. Contextual files can be shared across SRE teams to provide more information on critical incidents.
Automation
SREs must automate the collaboration process to triage and resolve critical issues promptly. OnPage’s automation capabilities provide an efficient, reliable way to manage incidents that may occur in the production environment.
OnPage’s digital scheduler allows for precautionary steps to be taken to automate the alert going forth to an escalation team. By enabling automation, SRE teams can save money on man hours and avoid the potential for critical mistakes.
Continuous Industry Success
OnPage is a G2 Leader for incident alert management, consistently receiving recognition for high performance and user satisfaction. Read more reviews!
What features should SREs look for in a modern incident alerting platform?
Key features include alert escalation workflows, secure two-way messaging, integrations with monitoring tools, real-time message tracking, and mobile accessibility. These capabilities enable SRE teams to respond quickly, collaborate efficiently, and maintain system reliability.
What are best practices for integrating monitoring tools with an alert platform?
SREs typically integrate monitoring and observability tools with their alert management tools via webhooks or Public APIs. This allows teams to route incident alerts from systems like Promtheus, DataDog, or CloudWatch right to the on-call engineer based on the predefined schedule and escalation rules.
How do SREs ensure critical alerts are always heard by their team?
SREs rely on alerting platforms with persistent alerting for up to 8 hours until read and the ability to override Do Not Disturb and the silent switch. This ensures high-priority alerts are not missed, even after-hours helping maintain uptime and meet service-level objectives.
What's the most efficient way to schedule and rotate on-call duties across global SRE teams?
Digital on-call management solutions allow SRE leads to create time-zone aware schedules with recurring rotations, backup layers, and holiday exceptions. These schedules ensure that only the correct engineer is paged, reducing manual scheduling errors and improving global coverage.
