Device naming best practices?

[Oaktech]

Ours is pretty simple:

 

For servers: Three letter site code, - SVR - server function 3 or 4 letter contraction of name or number for DCs. -So for example (as this is publicly available on our MX records) oak-svr-exch is our mail

 

For laptops: Lap-normal usage area-number for example: lap-6th-001

 

For workstations: ws-normal usage area-number or ws-normal usage area-usercode. for example ws-it1-001 or ws-house-sjp

 

there are a few exceptions, but this is the rule!

[Sagima]

ICT Suite Machines: SuiteName-XX where xx is a number eg DT-01

Office Machines and Staff laptops: InitialsYearof Purchase Type eg AWM10M for a 2010 purchased Mac primarily used by awm or JCD08L for a laptop bought in 2008 used by JCD

Servers: By function eg SCCM1 for the SCCM server

Printers: By location

[Rackenford]

Have always just done serial number with an initial in front for manufacturer - D for Dell, L for Lenovo. Hmmm, do I need to change?

[Garacesh]

Nice and easy here, you can see a PC name and immediately know where it is.

For student PC's: [4-character representation of room]-###, from the left of the doorway (001 ++)

For staff PC's: [4-character representation of room]-STAFF (appending -01, -02 etc if applicable, for example, staff rooms)

Laptops: [set-name]-000 (eg SciLT2-013)

Servers are just named for as-and-what they are. Smoothwall, Print-Server, CCTV-Server etc.

 

However, I had to have some fun at a primary school I worked for a while. The domain was handled by a third-party, I was just there a day a week to fix what went wrong because their techie was only in half-a-day per fortnight. They decided the school had to have the name and a dash by computers (as they managed other primary schools on the same domain, ended up with me finding a huge security hole, but anyway..)

Their school name, plus the mandatory dash, ended up being 8 characters, and they also declared I couldn't go over 15 characters. I asked if I could abbreviate the name to 3 characters, but they replied with a resounding 'Noo!'. So I had 7 characters to deal with.

 

Key Stage 1 PC's ended up with SCHNAME-KS1-P01 - P10, the 10 Key Stage 2 PC's getting -KS2- instead.

The set of 15 student laptops ended up with SCHNAME-LAP-P01 - 15, and staff laptops got SCHNAME-LAP-??? where ??? was a 3-character representation of the staff member the laptop belonged to (Joe Bloggs, for example, would have SCHNAME-LAP-JBL)

Unfortunately rooms weren't labelled by subject or staff member, just 1 to 10, so staff machines were SCHNAME-R##-S01

In a few rare cases, a classroom had a student PC in it, too, which received SCHNAME-R##-P01

Early Years finished up with SCHNAME-EY-P01 - P03 for the 3 student workstations and SCHNAME-EY-S01 - S02 the 2 staff machines (giving me a whole 1 character spare! Yay!)

For Admin machines I decided on SCHNAME-REC-S01 - 03 for reception, and the others were SCHNAME-ADM-S01 - S07 as they had no set user.

I wasn't allowed to touch their servers (besides the print server I fitted whilst I was there), which I labelled SCH-PrintServer (SCH being the abbreviation I'd previously asked for)

 

Of course, I included full detail of my naming convention and computer locations in the inventory I took whilst I was there, I'd like to think I made the best of a bad situation..

Edited January 8, 2014 by Garacesh

[Harlquinth]

It's been done based on location/type at the schools I've been at - I can imagine doing it by asset/serial number could get a bit confusing!

 

One school I've been at has a system where the name is 8 characters, the first character a letter describing which building (e.g. B), the second a number for which floor (e.g. 0 for basement, 1 for ground floor, etc). The next three characters are the room code, the 6th character is for machine type (C for desktop, N for laptop/notebook, P for printer), and then the last two for what number it is (01, 02, etc).

 

If the device is something like a laptop/notebook which doesn't have a fixed location, the first two characters change (e.g. 'nb' for a laptop). The room code varies, but normally something like for teaching classrooms 'R' followed by the classroom number, or offices, the third letter is 'O'.

 

E.g.

B0ADOP02 (for the second printer in the admin office in the basement)

NBTR2N05 (for the fifth laptop in laptop trolley 2)

C2R27C01 (for the teacher computer in classroom 27 on the first floor of building C)

 

Hq.