server naming conventions

[itgeek]

Hi what do people use for naming conventions, for server and pc? Was thinking functional names example esx1 esx2 mail01

 

Thanks

[GREED]

You might want to check out this thread:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-chat/57429-server-names-what-next.html

[bart21]

We use Lord of the Rings characters

 

nick

[ranj]

All about the simpsons!

[MatthewL]

Servers are NEL or NL (North East Lincolnshire or North Lincolnshire), its role i.e. Data, IIS, SQL, Exchange then a number i.e. NEL-DC-01, NEL-DATA-01 you get the idea.

 

PC's are just the Dell service tag that way we can automate the whole install.

[glennda]

womens names!

[FN-GM]

We have a more than one campus at our school. We name ours as follows:

 

Servers:

(Site initials) - (Server role initials) - (Server number with the role)

For example our domain controller number 2 would be

RT-DC-02

 

Computes:

(Room number) - (Computer Number)

For Example Room RT21 computer 3 would be

RT21-03

 

Laptops:

As these walk between sites we name these

LAP-(numbering from 01)

For eample

LAP-03, LAP-12 etc

[chrisbrown]

At home, I'm all for dumb names, but in the office, I need to know exactly what any box does at any particular time. When I worked for an international company we followed this convention (detail [number of characters]):

country[2]region[3]purpose[2]site[2]number[2]

i.e. in our head office, the third SQL server was called AUQLDHOSQ03. In the data centre, the 17th Citrix server was called AUQLDDCCT17 etc etc.

 

In the school I'm in now we use campus[2]-physical/virtual[1]-purpose[]number[2]

for example SY-V-MG01 for the management server, GW-P-DC01 for a DC at another site.. SY-V-IIS01, etc etc.

 

I'm not a fan of dashes as they make typing and saying a name of a server difficult. For example ess why dash v dash eye eye ess zero three is harder than ess why vee eye eye ess zero three...If that makes sense...I'm a bit anal retentive about server names..They have to match convention perfectly or they get renamed as far as I'm concerned. When you manage 60 or more servers, name guessing needs to be done, so if you're not sure of the convention used it gets even harder. Imagine trying to remember 60 different cartoon characters and what each server does!

 

That said..our DMZ servers all have star wars names. There's only 8 servers in the DMZ so it's not such a big hassle.

 

Edit: Forgot my home names!

Media Server: tihSevreS (read backwards..will make more sense)

EeePC: Eeeee

Mac Mini: inimac

NAS: Bruce

Parents PC at their place: xyz

Edited November 25, 2010 by chrisbrown

[wackou]

We use Star Wars name

[pete]

Use whatever you like providing a) it scales b) your fellow sysadmins aren't likely to stab you because of your naming convention c) it's appropriate for the number of servers you have. If you're multi-site/region/country, then the muppets/dwarves/diseases take a back seat to being able to ssh into a box and know where and what it does. Doing out-of-hours work from .uk on a box in Australia gets interesting if it's not obvious the box is in Australia.

[fred54]

I name all my PCs using the serial number - it creates a unique identifier and depending on how you have your AD organised it's useful for stocktaking/inventory. You can put in additional identifying comments in the description field on AD. Also if you name a PC by it's location in the building, you will have to rename it if it's moved, which is a pain. I tend to name the servers with mundane labels so that roles on the servers are not easily identifiable.