philc

we're just about to instal 6 new computer servers runnning all the usual Microsoft stuff; i'm trying to think of some meaningless names for the boxes - fed up with Greek gods, planets and the local variant, native New Zealand birds - any other suggestions out there?

ChrisB

We use cartoon characters...

Cartman - big bugger IBM NetFinity 7000 (I'm not fat, I'm just big boned)
Chorlton
Wheelies
Dastardly
Muttley

ChrisB.

IWatkins

Usual stuff:

1. Cartoon characters
2. SciFi characters (current favorite in our area is to name them them after film/tv computers e.g. Orak, Hal, Holly etc.)
3. Boring numbering schemas (e.g. sales0100, sales0200, sales0300)

I'll find my other list and post it later.

Cheers

Ian

boomer

Different Beers?

mb

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

Shoot me now..... I've Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Sisko, Spock, Worf and Seven.



Nick

IWatkins

Nick, you is a geek, consider yourself mini-gunned down....

Cheers

Ian

Brendan Hughes

Scooby, Scrappy, Shaggy, Fred, Velma, and Daphne.



BJH

Neil Smalley

I always used a naming convention for servers. Something like

<purpose><Operating system><importance 1 -10><incremental number>

so

excNT410001

Means exchange server running NT4 critical system number 001

By all means call it cartman, but at 4am when it goes down and the only person who knows what it does is on holiday, you'll be thankful for a decent naming convention.

ChrisB

No fun are you Mr. Smalley?

Anyway, all four guys in my team know what server is which. The name stickers on the front and our network map help...

ChrisB.

DazV

Simpsons characters:

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Apu, Ned, etc...

TimD

We're just going through the process of removing servers which were all named after anti-depressants. Valium, Amytal etc. Oh, and Viagra, which was supposed to be a super resilient server that would stay up all of the time.

Now being replaced by servers with proper names
<identifier><ISO country code><building code><number>
identifier is S for server, p for printer, w for workstation, r for rack
ISO country code is things such as US, IE, FR etc.
Building code is our two letters for the start of the town, then an incremental letter for each building
number is four figures. For servers, the ranges indicate what type of server it is - e.g. 2000 to 2999 would be for messaging servers.

stevem2k

We used to use the names of fish for some reason. Even the desktops.

It got a bit silly when you end up with names like fishfinger and fishface though.

We have a mix at this place of 'normal' IT/geek names ( Homer, Marge, Beavis, Butthead, Bender, Orac, Deepthought etc, etc ) and more sensible ones that go something like <client>-<type>-<release> ( you end up with axa-db-live f'rinstance ).

As Neil says, when you get paged by a machine at 03:fsck-all , it's significantly easier to figure out who's server you need to nurse back from the dead.

SteveM

If you only have 6 , and the LOTR was filmed down there, how about :

mordor
gondor
rohan
eriador
arnor
harad

Or is that just _too_ sad ?

[This message has been edited by stevem2k (edited 08 July 2001).]

Ga22ar

Having done consultantcy for a few years there's nothing worse than walking into a environment with server names based on the IT managers/analysts/tea ladies favourite hobby/pastime...

Makes it impossible to understand whats going on, on what machine and where.. Boring though it maybe systematic naming based on purpose/location/OS is by far the more pratical...

Currently I'm in an environment where the servers are named after mountains... faced with the question "How do I know where a server is ?", this sysAdmin says "Easy, the New York servers are named after US mountains, and the London servers are named after British mountains/hills !!... simple."

Yeah simple, for the fact that I wouldn't know and US mountain against a British one..

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

We currently have Lord Of The Rings

So therefore Gandalf, Bilbo, Aragon, Frodo etc (main characters) as Servers, with other names as w/stations.

The Domain is Rivendell...

There are numerous websites giving all the names & is probably good for 100 servers & w/stations.

Markus

Offcially are servers are HRS-NT5-XYZ

Which equates to

HRS - Hi Resolution Systems
NT5 - Well, win 2000 server IS NT4 isn't it?
XYZ - purpose of the machine, so, apps, ftp, mail, etc..

all very boring. but as I said these are the official names.

Unofficially they are called, well, depends on my mood, plus the behaviour of the box, so $hitbag, fecking heap o junk, piece of MS crap, etc, etc.. Yo u get the idea.

Must say that I'm nicer to the Apple mac servers than I am to the PC ones, might be coz I'm a mac man though

philc

thanx muchly for all the suggestions

.. the 'always up' server named viagra appeals.

- but i think i'm more in the neil smalley / Timd / Ga22ar camp. Even tho' it goes against the premise that if the function is moved to a different server, then the function naming standard falls apart. But then, i s'pose the server functions tend to get split out to new servers ....

thanx guys, you've given me the courage to demand meaningful names !!! (hell, who's the manager round here?)

regards

dowser

Use DNS; sensibly register the boxes...and then apply alias' as silly as you like

Or, if you have to be sensible, make the alias the application name - you can then move the alias to a new host if the function moves too.

Richard

Mr Footlong

iTrader: (7)

You can get mac servers?

firefox

Call them after female managers at the company..

Then you can log a fault call and say "sally has gone down on me"

Did that for one company.... management never caught on

J.

AllanB

Mac servers been around for quite some time. Not as popular as they once were but still common place in lots of big publishers .

AllanB

GranTurismo

If you use Subaru sepecail model you will have a constant supply of names

McRAE
Terzo
Catalunia
RB5
P1
UK300
STI1
Etc etc etc