We simply names ours by login ID. If John Smith had a login ID of jsmith, his ID would be jsmithpc to mean that he has a workstation.
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Naming computers in the network
As system administrators, sometimes in our lives we get a bunch of new born (or recycled) PCs, all cold and look the same. So we gave them warm and fuzzy names, to distinguish one from another.
The question is, what names would we use? I know everyone has a different system, but maybe we can come up with better or new ones. In particular, I would be most interested in:
1. what enumeration do you use / will use? i.e. real names such as alice bob, animal as lion tiger, gods as hermes zeus, stars as mars jupiter (pardon me for using planets...), chemicals such as plutonium, fruits, cities; or do you use cold and hard codes as BXaV0305a, NY-Gateway-03 & IBM0391827?
2. how would you differentiate one bunch from another bunch? there may be differences in time of acquisition, department, location etc.; would you use some kind of prefix in name to identify their membership? or use descriptions that are kept else where?
3. what happen to their name when the something changes (such as membership, location, function)? manual renaming can be extremely time consuming and are difficult to keep track of.
4. there must be a number of special purpose computers (servers, laptops etc) - what special name would they get?
5. finally, how could you remember any of this - without documents? (Michael is using 'Bazooka' running W2k, which is located in room 6/14th floor, connected to port F2/1/45 of switch PA-C3750-05 ...) Quick fixes often needs those information, and getting the big thick documents is not quick.
Any inputs are greately appreciated.
Kind regards,
HH
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Answers
Problem with associating people name with computer is that, when people move, or the computer move, the computer name is no longer accurate descriptive information. It would be ok if there's relatively static membership within department/domains, but wouldn't be too suitable for a non-static user base (e.g. university computer room).
Problem with IP is then again, the IP needs to be static, which would rule out the use of DHCP all together...
Any other thoughts? Personally I keep a table of reference elsewhere, but it isn't always convinient to look it up.
Hi
First of all, in my view, naming comptuers after usesr is not a good practice, user can leave the company, user can switch the desks, users can have new machines, users can move to another department.
What i am using is: Every computer has a unique tag identifiying it for example ww01015 where ww is my my region and 01015 is the number for that device. We are using the same for computer names. To add bit more information to the computer names, you can add the department name abbreviation for example Polww105 where Pol is for Poice and WW is for west wales and 105 or 1005 computer or device number.
<<(Michael is using 'Bazooka' running W2k, which is located in room 6/14th floor, connected to port F2/1/45 of switch PA-C3750-05 ...) >>
for remembering all this info....i am afraid you have to have some documents, visio drawings, software to show you picture of your network for exampel network view http://www.networkview.com
hope this will help, let us know of your thoughts.
cheers
We have a fairly high turn over of equipment, plus multiple users on the same machine.
Each piece of kit gets asset tagged as in enters service, so we incorporate the asset tag in to our machine id's. We create an 8 alpha-numeric name.
Site- 2 characters, Type of device 1 character, Asset tag number 5 characters
Example: SYMW00001
We then enter the machine type, location, lease time, serial number, support contracts and any more useful info like OS, and in certain cases port numbers and which user the device is given to.
Kit isn't allowed (except laptops) to moved between sites.
When a user has a problem, we ask them to read the asset tag number on the front of the device and then look it up in a database.
Even should the "magic pixies" pick off the asset tag, we can direct the user to display the machine name.
Works a treat and for a little hard work on receiving the device, down the line save us hours of wasted time and effort.
Thanks for your inputs. I have seen the acronym+number naming scheme popularly used. I think it is very well for large sites where other information will be kept in a database and/or pictured nicely in Visio/Networkview/HPOpenvi
Does anyone use/had seen Alpha/Bravo/Charlie/Delta or Alice/Bob/Carol/David/Ethe
More thoughts?
what size of organisations you are talking about? if you have 10/20 machines you can remember everything about them inlcudin their names, IPs, location, switch port number etc. If you have bigger network, even in the range of 30 to 50 then i think its better to make some documentation, which is always helpfull.
hi there
When I was the admin for a large site approximate 1000 + PC's
I made a naming convention so that each Site has its own name
PC part
Stuttgart = Germanny all computers would start with DESTUTT001 (expl. DE = Deutschland)
this leaves many numbers for each site.
So the only thing thats changes is the STUTT001 depending on the number and the location.
I made the same for the Network part
Stuttgart = DEROU001 (Router001) STUTTPIX001 = Stuttgart pix 001
but you will need a database still to control all the info about each site.
At each site you use a different subnet anyway, way not use this also in the halpdesk fase for ease of troubleshooting faster, the person gives in the subnet and you will know immideately from which site he comes. (what is his default gateway and so on).
I do not wanna advertise for my self but you could try this tool out to see if it makes the troubleshooting process faster.
www.eeesoftware.dk/helpers
Best regards
cooledit
Thanks a lot for your inputs. It seems that the hierarchical way is really the way to name large number of computers - though it may be a bit user-unfriendly - and use database to keep track of anything else.
How about those relatively static systems such as email servers, file servers or routers? Does anyone get creative with those names? I know that some site uses the name hermes for email server - hermes=god of messager; and some other uses such as Cerberus for a firewall box (three headed guardian dog). Any other examples?
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by: roifolkerPosted on 2004-02-17 at 19:09:55ID: 10388969
We name ours according to department and user.
For Example - John Smith in the Police Department would have a machine called Police_JSmith ... A person name Sarah Johnson in Recreation would have her system name Rec_SJohnson. Personell would begine with Per_, etc..