Server Names For a New Generation 429
itwbennett writes "Server naming is well-trod ground on Slashdot. But as new generations enter the workforce, they're relearning the fundamentals of what makes a good scheme. Can servers named after characters from The Simpsons or The Howard Stern show stand the test of time? If you name your servers after the Seven Dwarfs, can you have any doubt that Grumpy will cause you trouble? Striking a balance between fun and functional is harder than it seems."
Re:If I name my server "Coca~Cola" ... (Score:3, Informative)
Copyright, no. Trademark infringement, yes.
Re:It hasn't changed much, except for VMs (Score:3, Informative)
As far as server names I'm still using [sitecode][application][function][d|t|p|dr][instance #] where application is the LOB app name, function is something like app, db, web, etc and d|t|p|dr are which environment (dev, test, prod, dr). The only time this has ever been a problem was some ghetto app that had a hard coded 8 character hostname limit.
Re:Fun names worked great, for a while. (Score:4, Informative)
Hint: Use CNAME and you can keep the fun server name, too!
Re:Fun names worked great, for a while. (Score:2, Informative)
Hint: Use CNAME and you can keep the fun server name, too!
...not if they are Windows servers with file shares (SMB). As of Win2k3, CNAMEs don't work for that. Ironically, exposing Samba file shares on Linux works just fine with CNAMEs.
Haven't tried again with the latest Windows server software, so YMMV.
Re:It hasn't changed much, except for VMs (Score:2, Informative)
There are lots of admins running the free ESXi due to budgets since it lets them have more servers per box. (free version usually don't support hot-moves)
I run all my ADS/DNS/DHCP servers on three of them (not all on the same box though)
I'll be upgrading to the licensed versions in the next year.
Re:If I name my server "Coca~Cola" ... (Score:4, Informative)
Trademarks do not necessarily have to be registered; and can be lost by not using them even though they're registered; and may be lost by not defending it (i.e. letting infringement to go on for long time, without taking any action). It's far from black and white.
Actually in this coca-cola example: just naming your server like that should be fine, assuming he's not running a shop selling coca-cola branded servers.
However coca-cola being such a well-known brand may have a case against you selling computers under the coca-cola brand. Especially if you were to paint them red, with a white wave in the middle, because in that case you obviously try to pretend to belong to the soft drink company instead of being a computer seller, and cause market confusion. Or if you would paint them in that red/white colour scheme, but calling your company the coca computer company or so.
Trademarks are indeed generally industry-specific indeed, think Apple Computer vs Apple Music as well-known example.
Re:It hasn't changed much, except for VMs (Score:4, Informative)
VirtualBox does now support live migration as of version 3.1 via it's "Teleporting [virtualbox.org]" feature.
Re:Fun names worked great, for a while. (Score:3, Informative)
I'm currently volunteering as the head of the computing dept. of a student radio station, and this year we've gone completely the opposite way.
Why? Because when I arrived, we had a server called "*name of station*fs1" (File Server 1) which wasn't a file server, a server simply named "*name of station*" (makes for fun times when it goes down...!) which wasn't the main, all-powerful server, "jukebox" (which did run the station jukebox... and more) and some other systematic, role-based names such as *name*sw0 and *name*backup1 that'll probably stick better but who knows. Such names just don't work well when the workload moves across servers, we've found, which is often.
Then we got a new server for running builds/development stuff, and I decided, in an optimistic prediction of its stability and uptime, that it was going to be called bsod (Building Server of Development!). This sort of name still works quite well in non-backronymed form now that bsod is the main, generic Computing Team server. Since then, we've decided as a team that naming things with role-based names == setting up an artifact name bomb, and recent naming conventions have included naming servers in honour of well-loved Computer Science department lecturers, "dog" (of HELLO, THIS IS fame) and at one point a pair of servers was going to be called "red" and "blue", after a famous pair of handheld console RPGs...
Having said all this, the fact that we're run primarily by undergrad students and have a small number of servers means that we can get away with giving things silly names. We'll probably start CNAMEing/HOSTSing the role names eventually (already do this on the HOSTS level for the database server), so it doesn't matter if "dbserver" is "*name of station*specialpikachuedition" or whatever, and we can repoint the DNS if things move around!~
Logical name and friendly name (Score:5, Informative)
At the company I work for (large international corp) we have a logical name and a friendly name. The logical name helps identify where the machine is geographically (country, data center, unit) and the friendly name which is given out to everyone, which can be whatever name was requested, as long as it is suitable. This way you keep both the network team happy (you can tell from the name where to find it) and everyone else too (they have a name that is easy to remember).
In the case of virtual machines and blades there is another logical naming scheme, adapted to the context.
Re:Fun names worked great, for a while. (Score:5, Informative)
I actually just dealt with this recently. Vista and 7 have no problem connecting to servers using CNAMES, but XP does. The solution is a single registry change on the server side. It's a very easy fix. Google DisableStrictNameChecking.