When a sysadmin or other person builds a computer or server, it is usually assigned a name. This is the computer's identifier on a network.

A computer with a name has a personality, so care must be taken at the name generation stage. Invariably, this naming process takes a long time and can lead to frustration.

Some people come up with names like "behemoth" or "grunter" or similar. Some organisations with many servers have a naming convention, which fit a theme (types of fish, a greek god, signs of the zodiac).

One particular naming method I am fond of is to put words together and use parts of the resulting combination. In fact, "method I am" produces "hodiam". This trick is often used in cryptic crosswords.

We use naming conventions here at work. I think. In my opinion, system names should MEAN something. Unfortunately, they often don't. I've worked a places where they were named after Colorado mountain peaks over 14,000 feet, places where they were named after Simpsons characters, Marx Brothers characters, Mythological figures, etc etc etc.

These names do not contribute to usability. At least in a development situation, it would be better to use meaningful machine names. Developer's workstations should be have a name that readily identifies them as that developer's box. Servers should be identified by their function. If there is some systemic reason to not use sensible names, at least configure your internal DNS (or external, if remote access is desired) to alias useful names.

Things like "DevServer01, QA01, Production01, DB01" and "devserver01.company.com, qa01.company.com, production01.company.com, db01.company.com" are far more useful (and easy for people to remember) than "purpleDC0021".

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.