| Guide to Computer Naming Schemes and Conventions |
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| Written by Unknown | |||||||||||||||
| Thursday, 28 September 2006 | |||||||||||||||
 Many administrators don't put much thought into choosing a standard naming convention for the various servers, workstation, and shared printers when they start a small to midsize network. But as your network grows, the lack of continuity and usefulness of a random (or bizarre) naming scheme can turn into an administrative nightmare. A computer name must be unique, but should also be somewhat descriptive or useful to users and Administrators. In this article we will take a look at the guidelines for naming conventions on Windows 2000, examine common naming schemes, and suggest a few alternate schemes for growing networksGuidelines for computer naming standards In a Windows 2000/XP network, each computer must have a unique name that identifies it to other computers using WINS and DNS, and to Administrators and Users on the network. It is generally recommended that computer names by under 15 characters for convenience and compatibly with NetBIOS and WINS. The computer name can use a mix of letters and numbers, but you should avoid hyphens, underscores, or using all numeric characters. If you are running TCP/IP, you can technically use up to 63 characters for the DNS name, but if you have a large and deep Active Directory structure with several sub-domains, you can run out of spaces quickly. For best results, follow these basic guidelines when choosing a computer name for your server or workstation:Best PracticesUse only letters (A-Z) and numbers (0-9) in your computer names. Hyphens, underscores, and other characters may cause problems with your DNS Servers.
Common practices for small organizationsHome networks and smaller organizations frequently choose informal or humorous naming conventions that can be based on obscure historical, literary, mythical characters, or cartoon characters. Some of the more interesting themes we've seen include cheeses, wines and other alcoholic beverages, satellites, planets, Science Fiction (Star Wars/Star Trek), muppets, musician/band names, celebrities, cars, mountains, rivers, and even bizarre medical disorders. While several of these may be fine for home use or small isolated networks, administrators quickly discover that this doesn't scale well when your network grows. Unless your entire organization is dedicated to astronomy, naming your servers after galaxies, and your workstations after planets will simply confuse users and Administrators alike. If you decide to use this method to name your servers, choose a theme that is easily understood by both your users and administrators, and that still has room to grow. If you think your organization will grow past 10 servers and 100 workstations, you may want to choose a naming scheme that is more descriptive.Common practices for large organizationsIn large organizations that manage thousands of workstations and servers, a logical and standardized naming scheme is a must. Not only can this quickly identify the appropriate support personnel for that server/workstation, it can also be used as a security tool to identify the location of internal security threats without having to tear through the subnet tables.In several of the Fortune 500 companies that I have worked for over the years, a common naming practice revolves around choosing a theme that rapidly identifies the location and function of a network device. The scheme usually consists of a standardized location identification code, followed by the department code, a description of function, and a numerical sequence. Common coding abbreviationsSV Servers Following this example, a Server in the 6th floor of the Headquarters in Cleveland Ohio would start with "CLVHQ06SV" This name takes up 9 characters, allowing for 6 additional characters which can include additional identification data. We don't move our racks around frequently, so of our 3 web servers, the one sitting in rack number 18 is "CLVHQ06IIS18003". It may sound complicated at first, but once your staff gets used to the convention, it makes it much easier to locate and troubleshoot servers. Just make sure to include a cheat sheet for new employees and visiting contractors. For workstations, (which can number in the thousands) a slight variation uses a similar starting sequence "CLVHQ06WS" followed by either cube number, department code and sequence (HR124), or part of the user name. You'll have to balance this with how often PC's move around your organization, how high your personnel turnover is, and how closely you want to track your workstations. Automatically Generating Computer NamesIf you are using Windows 2000 Remote Installation Service to deploy your Windows 2000 Professional, you can use the Automatic computer naming option to make sure each client computer is provided a unique name during the remote installation request. The default format is the user name with an appended incremental number. You can also create a custom naming policy; to do this, click Customize. You can then select one of the following options to automatically create the computer name:%First To limit the length of the computer name, add a numerical value to the text string. For example, if the user's last name is Smith and you want to limit the name to three characters (Smi), use the following string: %3Last You can also combine options. For example, if you want the computer name to consist of the first three letters of the user's first name followed by the first three letters of his or her last name, use the following string: %3First%3Last% Alternate Sources for Computer Naming Schemes:The Encyclopedia MythicaAn online encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and legend with over 5,700 definitions of gods and goddesses, supernatural beings and legendary creatures and monsters from all over the world. Makes a great reference for generating computer/server names, project codenames, hard to guess passwords, and a unique test user list for computer labs. Satellite NamesStill can't figure out what to name your new server? This page lists the names that have been given to satellites and rockets. Names that are merely acronyms or descriptions of the satellite's function (e.g. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) are not included. NASA has named a number of its scientific satellites, and other space agencies have also used up some names.
Network Browser
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| The points are good, however, there are networks that do not run on only microsoft windows hence the naming scheme could be a little less M$ centric. |
James Beukelman
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| Good article. I would simply add that in one organization I worked at, they broke down the workstations category into WS (workstation) and LP (laptop). Many organizations differentiate between computers and laptops as different security polices are applied to them. If you’re using an LDAP based network (eDirectory, Active Directory), separating those two common computers makes it easier to lock down a laptop tighter than you would a desktop. Great site by the way, a much needed resource. Thanks |
Bryan
said:
| Hi, I just wanted to add in a few hard-won little naming schema tricks I have picked up over the years. 1) There is often a temptation to use location or function in the computer naming schema. This can work, and it can be very helpful, but it can also create headaches of its own. What if the computer changes function or location ... or both! Imagine a SQL server at Site5 which is moved to Site3, and becomes an IIS server in the process. What if the computer takes on multiple functions? Often it can cause serious technical or retraining issues to rename a system, so the temptation to have your Site5SQL1 system sitting at Site3 running SQL and IIS becomes pretty strong. Of course, the more times this happens, the less useful your naming schema is... 2) The computername field is *short*. And this forces us into all kinds of wacky abbreviations that become harder and harder to remember. May I recommend ... the Computer Description field? On Windows systems you can edit this field by rightclicking My Computer and selecting Properties, then going to the Computer Name tab. This field is much longer, and it doesn't require a system reboot to change, so it's the perfect place to document location, function, username sorts of things. It can still be searched with utilities like BROWSTAT. *nix systems running Samba also present this field - just edit smb.conf to change it. |
jlokerse
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| If you are running on empty when trying to come up with a name this site can help: http://namingschemes.com/Main_Page Hope thsi helps. |
John
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| DNS is the way to go. Abstract computer names are fine, so long as they are the A record. Use a CName for each *function* a server provides (e.g. irc.domain.com and web.domain.com may be on the same server today, but later?), this can then be moved to different servers/computers without anyone noticing, Oh, and it allows easy load balancing / round robin efforts for applications that seriously need to scale. This method works well for workstations as well - Abstract names as the A record, usernames as a cname, |
doingthisnow
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| Think about the inherent security risk when you name all of your servers in such a way that should someone manage to get in, they know exactly where to go. If you are the intruder, the server named DC1 is a pretty nice target. So are the servers named MSXxxx. Think about it, why make things easier? Users get used to server names rather quickly and in a properly configured network, they really don't need to know the names anyway. Why do users need to know the names of your domain controllers? They don't. The use of names from TV shows and so on is a valid naming convention. The most important aspect of any naming convention is not some technical sequence that allows anyone including intruders to guess, but the documentation of the assets. You might say that once you have 200-500 servers that a technical naming convention is a great way to go since it allows one to quickly identify server functions but again, then anyone can figure it out and instead of hunting around they go right for your mail, domain and data servers. |
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