need good names for servers

[hulkster]

okay, so this isnt cab related, but i need some suggestions.  im at work and we will be getting several new servers pretty soon and i need to name them.  im not a huge nerd or star wars fan or anything so dont give me suggestions like "Han, Luke, and Darth" for names.  i want something i can remember but not too retarded.  it needs to be somewhat professional so when i tell someone our server name, it doesnt sound dumb.  suggestions?

[Shape D.]

use names of roman or mytholagical gods.

[ChadTower]

How about you take the useful route and name them for their purposes?  I can't stand it when I have to remember a matrix of 45 servers to random names like Himalaya and Bourbon.

[Goz]

Could always go the confusing route. We have servers here names UP, DOWN, YES, NO, MORE, LESS, etc of course there are a couple of arcade names and Marvel super Heros like SPIDERMAN, ROGUE, STORM, etc.. along with types of alcohol.

Always baffles our lowe people when they hear "UP is DOWN" or "Is DOWN up?"


-Goz

[shmokes]

Servers should always be named according to context, usually location or department.  My servers are named, for example,  name them Accounting and EmpDatabases, or 34thStreet and 5thAve.  You should name your servers so that a person trying to connect to them, or a new Network Administrator who takes over your position when you leave logically knows where that server is and/or what it does simply by looking at the name.  Smart LAN and WAN planning pays off in spades.  Develop a good naming system and stick with it.  Even be sure to use the same naming conventions, i.e., all caps, all lowercase, etc.

[DrewKaree]

You should name them after Three Stooges, Seinfeld Characters, cities in america with a population less than 4 million, musical one-hit wonders....and make it as Korn-fusing as possible to make yourself appear to be the one vital human bean the company can't live without, lest they be unable to access any of their computers. 

Also, password protect half of whatever would be normal, so they fail often enough to make it appear yet again that they can't live without you, but not so often that they think you don't know what you're doing. 

And quit stalking us

[RetroJames]

Servers should always be named according to context, usually location or department.

[screaming]

How about you take the useful route and name them for their purposes?  I can't stand it when I have to remember a matrix of 45 servers to random names like Himalaya and Bourbon.

  I can't tell you how many times I've seen servers named "notes" and  "exchange" end up serving a completely unrelated service, like DNS. What do you do then?  And never mind the infosec implications...

  I'd rather have a map of all my servers on the wall than have the users complain they have no idea where they're going, or even worse, my deskside people being just as confused.

  I started naming my servers after dead rock stars, Until this came up and bit me in the ass when Joplin went up in smoke... 

-sab

[hulkster]

hmmm, all very useful opinions.  im not sure i agree with naming them using the indexed idea because that would just get confusing.  currently we have the servers named with numbers at the end to identify them, and its confusing, so i want to steer away from that.  however im not sure i want to name them something like "FILESERVER and ADSERVER" etc. for fear of someone breaking in too easily.  ....hmmm....

[ChadTower]

If you're worried about someone from the outside hacking in, you're concentrating your energies on the wrong part of the network.

[hulkster]

i know thats a whole different deal, but just trying to cover all my bases.

[RetroJames]

hmmm, all very useful opinions.

[M3talhead]

Whatever you decide, there has to be a naming convention. For example: Having worked on several military insatllation networks, I can tell you that the best way of going about it is to have a logial naming system.

I.E

Home-File-01 (Primary file server)
Home-File-02 (Secondary...)

Home-DNS-01

Etc....


Another way to do it, is to relate to your favorite cartoon/tv show, movie, or hell, you could even name them after your favorite arcade games (this is after all an arcade forum)

So your list could go something like this....

Gorf (file-01)
Qbert (file-02)
MC (DNS-01)
Gauntlet (Firewall-01)

Whatever you shose, make sure its logical and fits a predetermined convention.

[RayB]

I name mine after high-profile game designers and coders.

MIYAMOTO
MIER
CARMACK
...

[cholin]

Ill tell you exactly how to do it.

1) Get a dictionary.
2) Open to a random page, such as 114
3) Close your eyes.
4) Say "eenie meenie minee moe" as you move your finger along the page.
5) Type the word closest to your finger.
6) Repeat from step 2.

[shmokes]

I agree with 1hooked.   Pretty much what I said....but better.

[fredster]

Servers should always be named by film stars.  Hans is good. 

You can go with cartoons.  Hughy, popeye, olive, Tom, Jerry, etc.

If not cartoons, then porn stars. 

It's great.  It creates a network that IT guys hate and curse, which is just fine by me.

[crashwg]

Ill tell you exactly how to do it.

1) Get a dictionary.
2) Open to a random page, such as 114
3) Close your eyes.
4) Say "eenie meenie minee moe" as you move your finger along the page.
5) Type the word closest to your finger.
6) Repeat from step 2.

I did something like that when trying to come up with a RP character's name.  I rolled 1 four sided die and two ten sided and came up with 348 or something like that.  I then opened my GF's baby name book to that page and rolled a twenty sided die because there were like 22 names on that particular page.

[DrewKaree]

Ill tell you exactly how to do it.

1) Get a dictionary.
2) Open to a random page, such as 114
3) Close your eyes.
4) Say "eenie meenie minee moe" as you move your finger along the page.
5) Type the word closest to your finger.
6) Repeat from step 2.

I did something like that when trying to come up with a RP character's name.  I rolled 1 four sided die and two ten sided and came up with 348 or something like that.  I then opened my GF's baby name book to that page and rolled a twenty sided die because there were like 22 names on that particular page.

Good to see you're taking your OCD one day at a time.  Remember, baby steps first.  You've got to walk before you run, sparky.

I can't even believe you have a friggen 20-sided die in the house!  I'm lucky if I can find a pair of NORMAL dice! 

[tommy]

What about moe larry and curly those are some great names. 

[DrewKaree]

You should name them after Three Stooges,

ahem....

What about moe larry and curly those are some great names. 

that is SO yesterday's news

[GreenKnight37]

Name the servers after disasters.

Titanic, Hindenburg, etc...

That way whenever you have to notify people of problems, it will be sorta humorous.  "The Titanic has Crashed!"  "The Hindenburg has gone down!" 

You could also use famous place names, buildings in particular.  So...you could say "The White House is on fire!" if your server ever catches fire

[SOAPboy]

I always just pick a peice of hardware and name them from that.. like, my gaming machine is 6800GT, gfs box is P420 ect

[Harry Potter]

How bout beer names of arcade games?

[RetroJames]

If you are going the warm fuzzy route - Use the names of the top posters at byoac -

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?action=stats

paigeoliver.yourdomain.com

peale.yourdomain.com

sirpoonga.yourdomain.com

Minwah.yourdomain.com

[nipsmg]

Oh god.

I'm a IT Manager, and I've had to deal with EXTREMELY POORLY named servers in this organization.  Once you've got a server named, and have people pointing programs and queries to them by name, it's EXTREMELY difficult to change them (with a small staff and no time for troubleshooting).

Trust me on this, give them some kind of naming convention that's clean and that names the PRIMARY purpose of the server.  If there are secondary purposes also, so be it.

If your company is named Arcade Restoration Group, and you have 2 offices in Podunk and Erie, do something like this:

    ARGPODMAIL01 - ARG's 1st mail server in podunk
    ARGPODMAIL02 - ARG's 2nd mail server in podunk
    ARGPODFILE01 - ARG's 1st file server in podunk
    ARGPODSQL01 - ARG's 1st sql server in podunk
    ARGERIEMAIL01 - ARG's 1st mail server in erie.
    ARGSQLMAIN - ARG's shared sql server
    ARGDC01 - ARG's 1st domain controller

   now if you decide to run DNS or whatever from any of these servers, so be it (just like you'll probably run antivirus on on of the mail servers, maybe not, depends on your setup).  Don't get cute and name things like "pacman" and "galaga" or after roman gods, or after pokemon characters, or after your children (i have seen ALL of these in practice).  At least give some indication about what they do, and make sure to have their uses and applications documented in your disaster recovery plan also.



 

[ChadTower]

I can't even believe you have a friggen 20-sided die in the house!  I'm lucky if I can find a pair of NORMAL dice! 

I have a whole bag of dice of various types.  My kids like to play with them and it's a good exercise in shapes and numbers.

[FractalWalk]

Server 1) Who's_on_First
Server 2) sjdagfa8s9e65q4u5fc9q80(%28
Server 3) The_server
Server 4) Dave
Server 5) Van_Halen_Rules

[cholin]

I can't even believe you have a friggen 20-sided die in the house!  I'm lucky if I can find a pair of NORMAL dice! 

I have a whole bag of dice of various types.  My kids like to play with them and it's a good exercise in shapes and numbers.

Kids, what number is this...... *reply* four!  Correct, now what shape is this.... *reply* ummm a die?
I can just imagine asking shapes   If this die has 21 sides, what shape is it

[Santoro]

I am an IT Director for an outsourcer and I have seen it all at various accounts.

[nipsmg]

I am an IT Director for an outsourcer and I have seen it all at various accounts.  Comic characters, Ancient Playwrights, Artists have all been used.  Those are cute for home use, but don't inflict that on people at work.

We settled on something like this for one of my accounts that worked well:

NTS-NY-FIN-MAIL-01

NTS=NT Server (could be UNX, LNX, SOL, AIX, etc.)
NY=Location
Fin= Business unit owning the server
Mail=function or application name
01-99 = unique number

Also if it was a backup server, we would append -BAK to the name.

This made it infinitely easier when it came time to do inventory reconciliations, chargebacks, etc.

This was exactly what I was talking about.  This is what you really should do when naming a server.  A concrete naming convention for server and end user machines not only helps other people who have to work with them, but it also helps you when trying to track down network issues and virus outbreaks.  If you see virus traffic coming from MYCOMPUTER2378  you'll probably have no idea where it is.  But if it's coming from NTW-NY-PURCH-AGENT-01, you'll know it's one of the purchasing agents computers, you'll probably know from experience which one, and you'll know EXACTLY where it is.

[DrewKaree]

I can't even believe you have a friggen 20-sided die in the house!  I'm lucky if I can find a pair of NORMAL dice! 

I have a whole bag of dice of various types.  My kids like to play with them and it's a good exercise in shapes and numbers.

You have kids.  Game off.  No soup for you.  My wife was reading this over my shoulder and reminded me that we have Scattergories or something like that which has an umpteen million sided die.

And I have kids.  Game on.  I'll take the Crab Bisque!

[hulkster]

well thanks for all the suggestions guys.  although naming them something i could remember would be nice, i think for business reasons and the fact that i may have to tell employees the name of the server some time, i just need to make it something simple but with a standard like

HDMail
HDFile

with HD standing for the initials of the company.  etc. 

[GGKoul]

I have a client that has named after Star Wars.

The Network Domian is called "The Force"

Server Names
- Amidala
- Chewbacca
- Yoda
- Leia
- Skywalker
- Solo
- c3p0
- r2d2
- jarjar
- Vader


And when you log into each server, the background is the picture of the charterer the server is named after.

[fredster]

Where I work at, we named the servers by names, like the stooges or whatever.

We came up with a way to find them.  It's a thing called a "map".
It's really cool.  See what you do is have like this thing called a floor plan.  You put the name over the server in the "floor plan" and then when something goes wrong with the server, if you aren't sure where it's at, you actually pull out this piece of paper and look for it. 

In addition, we have a list of all the computers.  On the list is the location of the server on the "map".  We also took the time to take a magic marker and actually write the name of the sever on the actual computer.

It's worked well for so long now that we decided to keep it.  That way we don't have to listen to the IT guy go on about some other "system" he likes.

[Santoro]

That's cool for small shops, not so great for 4500+ servers across 20 datacenters.

[rampy]

You should name them after Three Stooges,

ahem....

What about moe larry and curly those are some great names. 

that is SO yesterday's news

That's what my servers at work are called... I even have wallpaper for the appropriate stooge... although stooges don't scale very well... If we add more servers we'll get stuck with "curly joe" and we already have a "shemp"

rampy

[danny_galaga]

                       DAVE

[Santoro]

yes?

:-)

[FractalWalk]

Server 1) Who's_on_First
Server 2) sjdagfa8s9e65q4u5fc9q80(%28
Server 3) The_server
Server 4) Dave
Server 5) Van_Halen_Rules

Already #4 on the list.