Labeling and naming

Patrick Greenwell patrick at cybernothing.org
Wed Jan 24 16:43:10 UTC 2001


On Wed, 24 Jan 2001, Kurt Erik Lindqvist wrote:

> 
> 
> 
> For a project I am currently working on I stumbled upon the following.
> What is the best way to lable and name equipment? 

Choose a naming convention, publish it internally,  and stick with it. 

The above is not meant to sound flippant, however there are numerous ways
that people attach labels to equipment/networks, and people will argue
endlessly about "optimal" naming schemes(I've been involved in more than
one or two discussions on the subject.)

In general I'd suggest trying to choose labels that are
meaningful(others of course will disagree.) Why it's fun to name servers
things like "cerebus" and "archemedies", it's not very helpful in offering
an indication as to the purpose of the machines(and of course some would
argue that is a good thing.)  

Some folks like to put airport abbreviations in their labels to attempt to
indicate the geographic location of systems. I don't as there are cities
with multiple airports, national and international airport labels can
conflict, and I frequently find that facilities are actually in different
cities than the nearest airport. 

When it all comes down to it, what is important as that you choose a 
naming convention that yourself and the people you work with can
understand.

I've got a naming convention somewhere I wrote a while ago if you're
interested in a starting point...






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