After years inventing the name of my servers, I had used a lot of methods and tactics about it. From South Park Names😉 until more practical conventions.
Today I’d like publish my last resolution about it. My easy guideline is:
- The name should identify the device and its functionality.
- The convention should be consistent and flexible.
- The device could be in different countries and different data centers inside every country.
- The name should help to the system administrator to connect to the machine.
With this prerequisites my server structure convention is:
- CC: Two digits to identify the country where is the server.
- SSS: Three digits to indicate the datacenter.
- FF: Two digits to explain the main function of the server.
- P: One digit for the placement of the server.
- AAA: Three digits for the name of the application or the identification of the application.
- XXX: Three digits for the number of the server in this environment.
A brief description on every field is:
- CC: The code of the country. For example SP for Spain.
- SSS: Identify the datacenter of the server. You could think about the city inside the country but I use the datacenter identification to it. For example, my first data center in Barcelona: BC1.
- FF: I have a list with the identification of every function that I need. For example:
|
ID
|
Function
|
|
DC
|
Domain Controler |
|
WS
|
Web Server
|
|
DB
|
Data Base
|
|
FS
|
File Server
|
|
AS
|
Application Server
|
|
EM
|
eMail Server |
|
BS
|
Backup Server
|
|
BI
|
Business Intelligence Server
|
|
PS
|
Print Server
|
- P: The placement, like function, I have my own list of functionalities:
|
ID
|
Placement
|
|
P
|
Production
|
| R |
Pre-Production
|
|
I
|
Integration
|
|
T
|
Test
|
|
D
|
Developement
|
- AAA: The name of the application is the identification of the environment o functionalities of the server. For example: SAP, ITA (Intranet), ITE (Internet), INF (Infrastructure) …
- XXX: The number of the server in their environment. To identify a different servers in a cluster, for example.
One example of this convention is my domain server in Barcelona: SPBC1DCPINF001 or the development data base for the intranet in United Kingdom: UKLN1DBDITA001.
Maybe you’ll think that the names are very long, but you can reduce it if you don’t have Servers around the world or only you have one data center.
My recommendation is that the convention should be the more practical as you need. Feel free to use this convention or other one. Remember: The name of Kenny for a Server is very nice but not really practical.
More information in:
Enjoy!!!
jotaerre.net 