

Tips for Naming Computers - oskarth
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TipsForNamingComputers

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twic
At my last job, the infrastructure guys were wild for virtualisation. All the
actual physical servers were just hosts for VMs, which did actual work. VMs
were created for some need, and destroyed if that need was no longer felt.
Therefore, no machine ever changed purpose: physical machines were only VM
hosts, and virtual machines were destroyed rather than reused.

As a result, we were able to name machines after their functions without
running into the traditional problems that stem from that. Sadly, this left us
with a terrifically dull naming system: physical machines were kvm-001,
kvm-002, etc, and VMs were fooapp-001, fooproxy-001, foodb-001, etc.

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ajdecon
I guess if you're running 5 servers and each one has 4 functions, more
"interesting" naming schemes can work. But once you're dealing with more than
a few machines, functional names are necessary. When I see a machine's name in
the logs, I _really_ don't want to have to infer the machine's function by
remembering whether "Zapdos" is a pokemon or a character from Star Wars. I
want a name like "dc1-cluster5-rendernode057" that tells me what the machine
does and/or where it sits on the network.

Even with physical machines: if the function changes, the correct thing to do
is re-name and re-image it, and not worry about the fact that the physical box
is the same. Your physical maintenance records should be keyed by something
like asset tag anyway.

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thiagoharry
I like to choose computer names after pokémons. The names usually are simple,
it's easy to follow some general rule to give names (get the last 9 bits from
MAC Address, add 1 and check which pokémon have this National Dex number), you
can choose wallpaper colors related with the pokémon color, there's a lot of
pokémons to prevent name collisions and new pokémon games which present new
pokémons are introduced faster than you have need for new names.

~~~
vortico
I also do the Pokemon naming scheme, but I've never considered that they get
released faster than I add servers.

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skarap
At one company I worked at we named the two border routers after two hot girls
from Sales.

Not sure it's a best practice though.

~~~
czep
We're talking about computer names here which is admittedly a very nerdy topic
but can we do so without descending to this level? You may find that funny,
but it merely contributes to the stereotype of technical folk as basement-
dwelling closet cases.

Even if you are so insensitive to not recognize how disrespectful this is, you
should at least be able to appreciate that it is a legal risk.

If I were to discover any such juvenile shenanigans in my group it would be
grounds for immediate termination.

~~~
paulddraper
Sure, just like impersonations of your boss are ill-advised. But funny to a
certain at of people (your boss probably not being a member of that set).

I suspect you haven't said anything he doesn't know.

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tinalumfoil
Since nobody's already mentioned it:
[http://namingschemes.com/](http://namingschemes.com/)

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wetmore
One solution which tends to obey all of these rules is to choose the names of
people from some common category, such as famous mathematicians.

~~~
czep
Philosophers work well too: leibniz, spinoza, kant, russell, quine, nietzsche.

At various times I have used European capitals, characters from Futurama,
characters from Dr Who (although everyone fought over who got 'k9').

Naming machines can be a lot of fun, and helps building a friendly
organizational culture. It also ascribes some personality to what would
otherwise be a deployment of 'lobotomized Unices.'

