Computer Naming Conventions

Erice

Erice

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Erice
I just built a new computer, and I am planning to use VMWare ESXi 5.1 to create a few virtual machines here at my house. My goal is mostly to learn about networking, but also to have some fun with technology. Planning on Win 7, Win 8, WS 2008 R2, WS 2012, maybe a hackentosh setup, and some Linux machines.

What sort of naming conventions do you network types use when naming a bunch of new computers? I've seen Greek gods, Simpsons characters, etc. I suppose I should use aviation related names (Orville, Wilber, Pratt, Witney, Cessna, Piper, etc.). I've also seen DC1 (domain controllers), FS1 (file servers), etc.

What do you use in the business world? Or just for fun?
 
I like to name the servers after computer parts so people sound like idiots when talking about them.

"Hey Bob, I think we need to reboot keyboard again"

Or

"Larry is hard drive scheduled for a memory upgrade"

or.

"Did you install the lastest round of patches on mouse"
 
I have all mine named as different single malt scotch brands....balvenie, dalmore, dalwhinnie, etc.
 
bartmc said:
I like to name the servers after computer parts so people sound like idiots when talking about them.

"Hey Bob, I think we need to reboot keyboard again"

Or

"Larry is hard drive scheduled for a memory upgrade"

or.

"Did you install the lastest round of patches on mouse"
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:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
What it is, where it is, what it does.

VM-SFExchMB01 virtual machine. At San Fracisco. Exchange Mailbox Role. Usually a number, in case you have more than one.
 
^^^ Like that in the corp world. If you have one location, I would sub the OS into the name:
WIN7_FS_1 = Windowz ver 7, File Server number 1

(dashes are generally frowned upon in non relational places due to their potential for being mistaken as a negative or subtraction)
 
At work its a 2 letter location and then role then number

dcexch01 -Data Center Exchange server
dcfs04 - Data Center file server
 
John221us said:
What it is, where it is, what it does.

VM-SFExchMB01 virtual machine. At San Fracisco. Exchange Mailbox Role. Usually a number, in case you have more than one.
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momalley said:
At work its a 2 letter location and then role then number

dcexch01 -Data Center Exchange server
dcfs04 - Data Center file server
Click to expand...

I gotta do an interview on Friday, perhaps I'll ask a naming convention question and if I get either one of the above answers, the interview will end and we'll continue searching. :D
 
We've used the Three Stooges, Star Trek ships, planets, and the aforementioned corporate style naming convention, among others.
 
MickYoumans said:
Star Wars characters
The printers are C3PO and R2D2.
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My old city, all the servers were named after SW characters. I was good until they named one Padme.
The facilities machine they were forced to support and all hated was called Binks.
 
My server hostnames are a random twelve character string inside various subdomains supporting its role and other properties -so for example -:

Jsktbas197se.poa.webapp.omaha.company.com

I consider all servers disposable now since I'm deploying all new technology on Amazon AWS and use various types of auto configuration systems some homegrown some open source to provision, track, and manage them throughout their (short) life cycle.
 
I am with Jesse, the cool name thing died long ago in a company of any size.

For a while we had planets, etc... Uranus going down, was a common occurance.

Now it is where, what and a number.
 
Not so much with the actual servers, but I've seen very large customers (Fortune 100) have a sense of humor with their naming conventions for SAN systems. One used various South Park characters (with a cartoon cutout sitting on top of the machine), and another large customer uses planetary bodies (yes...including Uranus). Still others prefer long complicated names that are more descriptive of their location/purpose, but I like the easy to remember names. Otherwise we just refer to them by the last 4 digits of the serial number.
 
A place I worked named the server for the street it was on and the state. It got confusing when we had a server on Georgia Street in Louisiana, MO (GEORGIA-MO) and another on one located in Georgia (INDUSTRIAL-GA). Files for Georgia kept getting put on the machine in Missouri.
 
I just remembered that back in the 70's, I supported a major hospital in the Chicago area that named their two redundant systems Judas and Lucifer. Do you think they were trying to tell us (the vendor) something?
 
I used to call my machine RON at the office but there was a bug in the earlier versions of Windows Domain that kept you from using the same name for a user as for a machine, so I renamed the machine R.

For a while we had some real ADHD with regard to machine naming. I had gotten a few before release protoypes from HP for a machine line they had code name "The Snake." So I gave these machines names like: Cobra, Rattler, King, ...

Someone came along and saw King and decided to name his machine Ace. We got Deuce, Queen, and Joker as a result.

Someone saw the machine Joker and decided to make a machine Riddler.

My machines at home were named after Simpson's characters: Bart, Marge, Maggie, Lisa, and BleedingGums.
 
bartmc said:
I gotta do an interview on Friday, perhaps I'll ask a naming convention question and if I get either one of the above answers, the interview will end and we'll continue searching. :D
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Work has 200+ servers....remembering nondescript names would not be the easiest
 
well, the location-os-number is what we use. but for lab machines we use muppets or dwarves.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD
 
14'er peaks are (were?) popular here in CO ... however

I currently have DEN100 thru DEN499 (Denver) and MEL100 thru MEL499 (Melbourne, AU)

100 series: Windows servers/infrastructure
200 series: *nix servers
300 series: Windoze desktops
400 series: Windoze laptops
 
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The S.O. uses transforms (Fourier, Z etc). I like the four horsemen like Pestilence though not so many nodes possible.
 
We use Site-function-number. sd-fs-01 is the first file server in our SD branch. We've got 37 branches in the US and one in china, so we have to be boring. I'd love to use southpark or simpson's characters.
 
Windows 7-64-bit IE9 (Mammals)

Alpaca
Buffalo
Camel
Dolphin
Elephant, etc.

Windows 7 64-bit IE8 (Foreign capitals)
Amsterdam
Athens
Berlin
Brussels
Tokyo, etc.

Windows 7 32-bit IE8 (Books of Bible)
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers, etc.

XP IE7 (Virtues and Vices)
Faith
Hope
Charity
Diligence, etc.

Vista (Months)
January
February
March
April, etc

Offshore developers (elements)
Carbon
Copper
Gold
Helium
Hydrogen
Iron, etc.

Specialty (Godfather families)
Corleone
Cuneo
Barzini
Stracci
Tattaglia
Sollozzo

Masters (despots)
Amin
Attila
Caligula
Castro
Cromwell
Franco, etc.

Others (7 dwarfs)
Doc
Sleepy
Sneezy, etc.
 
On a related name, we decided to stop giving our internal releases numbers as marketing/management always changed the version numbers by the time we actually shipped them. We used Virginia city names Ashburn, Bumpass, Chantilly, Dumfries, Emporia, ...

Bump-Ass and Dumb-Fries were popular versions.
 
Mine are all trails on Mount Monadnock - top, whitecross, crossroads, cliffwalk, whitedot...
 
I remember the good old days of whimsical server names...too buttoned up these days.

Use to have names like COYOTE and ROADRUNNER, they're like OAKFIL01...blech.
 
Our office uses ship names from Stargate. Started off with Prometheus, which crashed. I *think* Daedalus is still running, but I don't have much reason to look at it. We just replaced Orion with Aurora. Our new terminal server is named GATEBRIDGE. We're small enough that we don't have problems remembering these. Most of our clients with only one server end up getting named with some form of the company name and the OS version. Clients with more than one generally get named with the company name, function, and if necessary a os version or install date if needed to differentiate from an old server.
 
Star Trek ships. The server is Deep Space Nine.
 
AuntPeggy said:
Windows 7-64-bit IE9 (Mammals)

Alpaca
Buffalo
Camel
Dolphin
Elephant, etc.

Windows 7 64-bit IE8 (Foreign capitals)
Amsterdam
Athens
Berlin
Brussels
Tokyo, etc.

Windows 7 32-bit IE8 (Books of Bible)
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers, etc.

XP IE7 (Virtues and Vices)
Faith
Hope
Charity
Diligence, etc.

Vista (Months)
January
February
March
April, etc

Offshore developers (elements)
Carbon
Copper
Gold
Helium
Hydrogen
Iron, etc.

Specialty (Godfather families)
Corleone
Cuneo
Barzini
Stracci
Tattaglia
Sollozzo

Masters (despots)
Amin
Attila
Caligula
Castro
Cromwell
Franco, etc.

Others (7 dwarfs)
Doc
Sleepy
Sneezy, etc.
Click to expand...

Sollozzo didn't have a family. I'm not even sure he was a made guy. He was running around trying to simultaneously enlist the help of the Tattaglia, Barzini, and Corleone families. I don't think a soldato would do that, or could get away with it.

In fact, I think Michael made his bones killing Sollozzo, which wouldn't be possible if Sollozzo was already made. Only a made guy can whack a made guy.

Then again, Michael was the Don's son and the acting Don's brother, so it's possible he was made before making his bones. But it would be unusual.

As for servers, usually place - function - number nowadays. I used to be more creative.

-Rich
 
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RJM62 said:
Sollozzo didn't have a family. I'm not even sure he was a made guy. He was running around trying to simultaneously enlist the help of the Tattaglia, Barzini, and Corleone families. I don't think a soldato would do that, or could get away with it.

In fact, I think Michael made his bones killing Sollozzo, which wouldn't be possible if Sollozzo was already made. Only a made guy can whack a made guy.

Then again, Michael was the Don's son and the acting Don's brother, so it's possible he was made before making his bones. But it would be unusual.

As for servers, usually place - function - number nowadays. I used to be more creative.

-Rich
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I don't know. Frankie D needed 6 and he specified the names. You and he know far more about it than I do. I'll be sure to tell him.

Yes, servers have boring names like ctak3aut1, which is my favorite. But, we also have one VM called MissionControl64 in VCenter, but MissionCntrl64 on the network just to confused the unwashed.
 
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"SOTEL12" if I bought the motherboard from sotel and built it in 2012. Reminds me of what I'm using....
 
AuntPeggy said:
I don't know. Frankie D needed 6 and he specified the names. You and he know far more about it than I do. I'll be sure to tell him.

Yes, servers have boring names like ctak3aut1, which is my favorite. But, we also have one VM called MissionControl64 in VCenter, but MissionCntrl64 on the network just to confused the unwashed.
Click to expand...

For a real fan of The Godfather book and movies, to name a server after a non-existent family like Sollozzo would be an infamnia. Maybe Frankie D should consider using, for example, Falcone (Los Angeles), Molinari (San Francisco), or The Chicago Outfit (not part of the Commission, but nonetheless a family).

Some would say it would be okay to use Roth, as well, even though The Roth Syndicate wasn't part of the Commission. I wonder, though, if that would cause conflicts with the other machines on the network. Remember Frankie Five Angels' admonition to Michael: "Your father did business with Hyman Roth; Your father respected Hyman Roth; But your father never trusted Hyman Roth."

Oh, and I definitely would avoid Moe Greene.

-Rich
 
This is an interesting discussion. Thanks.

I once had a Dell service tech come replace a failing network part at our server. This was before virtualization. He saw the labels on each machine, which were Greek mythology names, and made the comment that this sort of naming convention was a good idea, since it didn't reveal the role of the machines, as opposed to naming them fs1, dc1, etc. Security by obscurity.

Do you agree? Or do you think in a business environment naming them for their function is a better plan?
 
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