On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 08:21:22AM -0600, Fanta, Ken said: > Another example is SSUNH-TS1. The S stands for Sever. SUN is the > location Sun Prairie, H in this example is Headquarters and the TS1 is > the server name in this case Terminal Server 1
How many locations/machines are we talking about here? Do you give your servers "real names" as well? If I said to you "Ken, can you go and check out the web server, it appears to be down," how would you know what to connect to off the top of your head? What if you got confused, because you weren't sure if you needed to connect to SSUNH-WB6 or SSUNH-WB2? What if you called them "Parry" and "Worzel?" I bet you'd remember which one had which service. We're not robots, we're humans, and that's one reason I don't believe in these 'logical' naming conventions. If you were instructed to repair a web server, physically, you would probably have to look it up in your register anyway to find out which server you're supposed to be fixing, because it's pretty unlikely your brain is going to remember what does what, unless you're working on the same servers constantly. Considering it's more likely that you're going to be connecting to a server remotely rather than physically, wouldn't it make more sense to minimize the amount of cross-referencing you need to do, by making the names easier to remember? Your system means you can find a server physically really easily, and that's great, but what about finding it remotely? One of my friends works for a major ISP in Australia here, and they have hundreds of servers and routers, all with 'illogical' names. It's interesting to note, however, that he can identify various routers and servers around that network (a vast majority of them) by their 'illogical name.' Had they followed the alternative naming conventions for their routers and servers, I'm sure he'd remember only a small portion of what he had in his network. Even if you stuck to a sort of naming convention, eg. Naming all the servers in Sun Prairie after the Simpsons (or whatever) would still "group" them as families, just like your naming convention does. But what it doesn't do is make them easily remembered from a remote location when you're trying to administer. If I had just connected to "SWASH-FB6" all day and then a week later I had to go back, without checking my diary or other logs, it's unlikely I'd remember that combination of letters. But if I remembered the name of the server was "Jackie-O," "Targus" or "Megatron," I'd probably remember which one I was working on all day. > This convention lets me know where that machine is at any given time > just by looking at the name. How much physical access do you really need? -- Adam Smith Information Technology Officer SAGE Automation Ltd. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sageautomation.com ------ You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
