Device naming best practices?

[Tys]

Are there any best practices that you people use for naming your win7+ machines?

Here, I use

TNab-c-d

Where:

a= OS, ie, Win7

b=D, L or S for desktop, laptop and server

c= Room number, ie, 05.

d= Machine number, ie, 01

 

So typically, you'd get something like TNWin7D-05-01, which is manageable for me.

Could I improve this without losing that information?

[xenonive]

Maybe Win7 could be W7 or W8 or WXP depending on version

[MatthewL]

Why do you need to put the OS in name?

 

What about PC/LT/SRV xxx (x = asset tag) or just the serial number?

[bclarke]

Never really seen the need for complicated computer names. I simply use the room name, then the computer number starting from the door, so R1-01, R1-02, R1-03 etc. Teacher stations always have the word Teacher, so R1-TEACHER and admin computers usually have the main users name.

[xenonive]

I also do the same as bclarke

[Tys]

Why do you need to put the OS in name?

Bad habit to be honest, no other real reason than that, it's just something I've always done.

Never really seen the need for complicated computer names. I simply use the room name, then the computer number starting from the door, so R1-01, R1-02, R1-03 etc. Teacher stations always have the word Teacher, so R1-TEACHER and admin computers usually have the main users name.

I like that, nice and short, I may well do something like that.

[northeast_technician]

i just go with the class that its in, then whether its a pc kids use or staff, the staff machines are typically connected to the whiteboard so i sometimes use red-iwb for staff or red-pc-01 then phyically number the pc in that class. We are only a small school so its works for us

[sidewinder]

XX-YY-ZZ

 

XX - site (we have 4)

YY - room name, will add LT if it is a laptop

ZZ - number (omitted if a classroom with just teacher PC)

 

In a single site school I'd probably just replace site name with DT for desktop and LT for laptop

[JHLEHS]

Similar to bclarke, we have the the following: zzz-xxx-yy

 

zzz= Location

xxx= STN or LAP defines if machines is Laptop or Computer

yy= Number of station in room, or if it the teacher PC.

 

 

For example R1-STN01, PE-LAP04

[bladedanny]

We have two classes per room/base so ours are

 

YEAR - left or right - number eg Y1-L-01, Y3-R-02 for teacher machines its IWB instead of a number.

 

It works for us as all our rooms are the same. When I worked in secondary we had room-number RM01-01 etc.

[john]

SS-RR-NN

 

SS= Site (or School Initials for Servers)

RR = Room

NN = Number or WB for Teacher PC

[JHLEHS]

I really like the idea of the IWB for the teachers, such a pain deploying SMART Notebook to teacher PC's as not all classrooms have IWB.

[aleach2]

We use the following which seems to work pretty well:

 

School Identifier (supplied by LA) = XXX e.g. SHS

Machine Type: Y e.g. L = Laptop/Netbook & D = Desktop

Primary User: A e.g. S = Staff, P = Pupil

Year machine purchased: B e.g. This year is N which equals 2013

Then a unique number starting at 001

 

So ours for example SHS-DPN001 would mean it is a Desktop used by a pupil bought this year. We then us OU's within AD to organise by room/location.

 

For servers we just use simple role based names e.g. SHS-APPS1 which would mean that this is an application server. Replace APPS with any of the examples below to fit the server role.

 

AD

FILE

MIS

MAIL

NETAPPS

RDS

PRINT

Edited September 30, 2013 by aleach2

[localzuk]

We have a super simple one - asset label number.

 

MMS-XXXXX

 

Label is on the front for staff machines, visible so they can tell us it if we need to remote connect or deploy something to it, or on the back for pupil machines so the kids don't peel them off.

 

Although we name ICT suite machines a bit different though - ICT1-01 etc... so they appears sensibly in software like ABTutor for staff to use.

 

Servers are named simply

 

AD

PRINT

SQL1

STORAGE1 etc...

Edited September 30, 2013 by localzuk

[tmcd35]

Desktops = Room-## (ICT1-01, ICT3-27,etc) or Room-TE (ICT2-TE) for the teachers machine

 

Departmental Thin Clients = Deptartment## (English01, Maths02, Maths02, etc)

 

Admin Desktops/Thin Clients = JobDescription## (Admin01, Finance03, Library01, etc)

 

Staff laptops = staff code (ABR for Alan Brown, MSM for Maggie Smith, etc)

 

Printers = Room-paper_size-[mono/colour] (ICT1-A3-Colour, Sciene-A4-Mono, etc)

 

Servers = what they $£%$^" do (I hate server naming schemes) (printers, dc1, dc2, dhcp, simsdb, slg, webserver, etc)

 

Everything else = [Manufacturer] [model] [descriptor] (BenQ MX504 Projector, HP Procurve 3560 Switch, etc)

[john]

I really like the idea of the IWB for the teachers, such a pain deploying SMART Notebook to teacher PC's as not all classrooms have IWB.

 

We did ours by AD Security Group. A GPO was set to all Workstation but then it only applied if the machine was a member of Smart Software group thus any PC could be added and get the Smart Software Worked a treat, also had one for Promethean software for the few Promethean IWBs we had.

[edutech4schools]

Keep mine even simpler in primary schools

 

Make + serial

 

So something like SAM-AEUG1U

 

That way if it is getting moved to another location I do not need to update the name.

[sparkeh]

 

is a bit redundant since I no longer work at multiple sites, just habit now.

is either 'admin', st (for normal stations), tl (teacher laptops), pl (pupil laptops). This helps with SCCM auto putting them in right collections.

Other are self explanatory.

 

Therefore a station might look like: rps-st-r1-01

[unixman_again]

For classrooms we do roomno-machineno-assettag and for offices roomno-userinitials-assettag In reality, the middle bit is redundant but that's what we do!

[seawolf]

Are there any best practices that you people use for naming your win7+ machines?

Here, I use

TNab-c-d

Where:

a= OS, ie, Win7

b=D, L or S for desktop, laptop and server

c= Room number, ie, 05.

d= Machine number, ie, 01

 

So typically, you'd get something like TNWin7D-05-01, which is manageable for me.

Could I improve this without losing that information?

 

We use -- for our computers. Some examples:

 

B12-iMac12-01 (the first 2012 iMac in room B12)

 

T5-Opti745-30 (the 30th Dell Optiplex in room T5)

 

I avoid using the OS version as that info is easy to retrieve and we don't keep a mix of OS versions around (all either Win7 or OSX 10.8). It's more important for me to know the machine type I'm looking at from the name on the network. The only time I use the OS in the name is when it's a VM (e.g. K3-iMac-02 is host and K3-Win7-02 is the Windows VM on that host).

[clareq]

RXXX-asset number for student desktops. IWB-RXXX-asset number for classroom IWB machines. ADM-staffcode-asset number for office machines. LAP-staffcode-asset number for staff laptops. LAPRXXX-asset number for student laptops. Dropping the hyphen in student laptops means staff laptops come first when alphabetically sorted. Servers get sitecode-use-number.

[the_dude]

-we use site abbreviation - Room or building # - PC# - ST(Student) or TCH (Teacher)

example: EC-12-02-ST

7,000 desktops at 25 different sites

-Servers are named per their purpose, I got tired of trying to remember what EC-Server02 did. (150+ servers)

-we use a vb script to add the Model #, service tag (serial #), and last logged on user to the computer description field of Active Directory Users and Computers

-we also use ocs inventory to collect inventory info (OS, software, etc.)

[manc_techie]

I’ve got a 6 digit Asset Tag on all Hardware (except monitors and anything under £100). This is stored within our Helpdesk System and the following naming convention is used.

 

Desktop: PC e.g. PC123456

Laptop: LP

Thin Client TS

Printers- we have two virtual queues but these are named by location e.g. (only have 1 per room as they’re all MFD’s)

Infrastructure: e.g. MANSVRDPM01 would be the DPM Server.

 

MANHPSWI01 – switch. MANSWAP01- AP and so on……

 

I find simply asking staff to quote the Asset Tag is easiest to find them as we can pull all the details down within the Helpdesk. If it’s not there it’s simply the device type and Asset ID. Makes replacement easy as we can pull a report of all machines due for refresh.

[Darylrese]

We just use PC Model - Asset Tag and in the description in AD specify its location. It helps a great deal when completing an inventory!

 

for example:

 

PC Name: HP7800-01232

 

Description: Library PC

[vladker]

My advice would be to use a location based naming convention. Ours is based on our school code (shared domain) - Room - Computer Number. Our school code contains an additional letter to determine wether it is a curriculum, admin or laptop PC.

 

I have serious issues with asset tag based naming conventions. They are only suitable in a large enterprise environment where you would be unable to devise a compatible naming convention.

 

If somone calls me, I only need to ask what room they are in to be able to connect to their PC. All the machines in IT rooms are ordered numerically. By contrast, I went to a school with asset based naming and it was hell. People can never find the tags, the kids tear them off, you replace them, end up with multiple old entries in AD. Urggghhh. Hell.

 

As Darylrese suggests, if you can keep the AD description up to date you would be ok. However, in that other school there was not a single correct description. I had 500 machines, and I didn't know where the hell any of them were. Puts shivers down my spine just to think about it.

Edited January 7, 2014 by vladker