A two-site, follow-the-sun rotation lets each group cover its own daytime and needs fewer people, six at a minimum in Google's guidance against eight for a single site. The price is handoffs and coordination. Choose it when you have people in suitable time zones and can write down a clean handoff.
What each model looks like
In a single-site rotation, everyone is in roughly one time zone. Whoever holds the pager covers nights and weekends, so sleep disruption is built in.
In follow-the-sun, two or more sites split the day. The pager moves to the site where it is daytime. Nobody is routinely woken for a page.
Comparing the approaches
- Factor: Minimum people (SRE book); Single site: 8; Two sites: 6
- Factor: Night pages; Single site: Common; Two sites: Rare
- Factor: Handoff risk; Single site: Low; Two sites: Higher, twice a day
- Factor: Shared context; Single site: Easy; Two sites: Needs deliberate effort
- Factor: Cost to set up; Single site: Low; Two sites: Hiring or reorganising
When two sites are worth it
The SRE book gives dual-site teams a lower minimum, and the benefit shows up mainly in sleep. If your incident load includes real overnight events, follow-the-sun removes the worst of the burden.
It works poorly when the sites do not share tooling, runbooks or a common incident document. Each handoff then becomes a source of dropped context.
Making handoffs safe
The SRE incident chapter has a good model. Brief the incoming person first, by phone or video if needed. The outgoing person asks explicitly whether the incoming person is now in command, and does not leave until they hear a firm yes. Everyone on the incident is told who leads.
Pair this with a living incident document that either site can read cold.
If you only have one site
Cut the scope of what pages at night. Agree which categories can wait until morning. Make sure whoever was woken is excused from early meetings the next day.
A hybrid option
You do not have to pick one model for everything. Some teams run follow-the-sun for high severity events and a single-site business hours queue for everything else. Others keep a small night-time group for a narrow set of critical alerts only.
Whichever model you choose, write down what pages outside business hours and what waits. That one-page agreement does more for sleep than any rota design, because it removes the debate at 2 a.m. about whether something is urgent enough.
Quick check
Do we need two offices to run follow-the-sun?
No, only people who are awake and working at different times. Remote staff in suitable time zones can form a site.
Sources
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
