Brian Sebby wrote:
We're going to be upgrading our AFS cell in the coming months, and my boss
has informed me that he wants to change the names of our AFS database servers
from their current domain (which is our old department name) to our new
server subdomain.
This question got me thinking about guidelines for picking cell names.
I've cruised the TWiki at http://www.dementia.org/twiki/bin/view/AFSLore
(which is back up now, and looks beautiful, btw; I must have blinked
when that was announced), but I didn't see any topic that dealt with
choosing a name for a new cell.
http://openafs.org/pages/doc/AdminGuide/auagd007.htm#HDRWQ34 and
http://openafs.org/pages/doc/AdminGuide/auagd007.htm#HDRWQ35 give a
little guidance, but misses an important point that was brought to mind
by Brian's question.
That point is, names change. Servers get life-cycled, departments get
renamed, divisions get reorganized, etc. But the name of an AFS cell
tends to find its way into the darkest corners of documentation and code
that could take a long time to find and replace whenever one of these
transient names transits. Changing a cell's name is not trivial, and is
to be avoided if possible. Perhaps the best way to avoid having to
change a cell's name is to name it well to start with.
Somebody made a good decision when our cell was named. They gave it a
name ("isis") that didn't have anything to do with our current
organization (except the top levels of course: "unc.edu"). The cell's
name was its own; it didn't reflect who owned it, who ran it, or who
used it. The initial reaction to the name was, as I recall, a collective
question mark above everybody's heads. But it's been a good name.
Besides being short and easy to type, the cell's administering entity
has undergone several reorganizations, renamings, and consolidations,
and the user base has shifted quite a bit, all without having to
consider renaming the cell. Although the crystal ball is rather cloudy
at the moment, it appears that the cell's name will endure, largely
because it's not heavily intertwingled with the transient names
surrounding it.
Would it be worth having some text along these lines in the TWiki? I
tend to be a bit wordy; perhaps a good editor could cut it down to about
30 well-chosen words?
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