What are two recommendation for an Organisation that is implementing network device naming standard?
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I'm often surprised by the different ways people and organizations will name their network devices. I've seen really bad, decent, and come up with my own that, of course, I think are the best. Plus, the affection people have for their naming conventions equals the affection people have for their icons. When I first started in networking in the Army the routers were inside mobile telecommunication shelters; for example, a Mobile Subscriber Equipment Forced Entry Switch (FES). The routers went wherever the FES went, so naming was easy. It was the FES name with a "-RTR1": FES57-RTR1. This scaled fine because Army networks had small administrative domains with maybe 30 telecommunication shelters for each unit. Each unit was a separate organization in a different BGP AS (sort of like a bunch of small ISPs). When I started working on global enterprise networks it got much more interesting. Now you had thousands of routers at hundreds of sites in different rooms and closets/IDFs in all parts of the world. Now naming conventions became very important. A very large bank network I worked on was terrible: 5,000 routers with a cryptic naming convention that was (1) hard to understand and (2) not well followed. Adding to the problem was the city name of the router was often not an actual city. It was a name the bank liked to refer to the site as. Good luck trying to remember all those names. The rest of the name had some good points, but also several bad ones. It was not something I enjoyed. The government network I worked on was minimalist. It was [city]-r1. For example, BUF-R1. Really boring and really useless. Some small company networks like to be cute and name devices after beer brands or rock bands or cartoon characters. That starts to fail quickly when the small company gets just a tad larger. A few other networks I worked on introduced me to some good naming conventions. That led to a device naming standard that I recommended for a new customer and that was actually used. It's long, but very useful: Show
So, taking all this in....if you were running GE's network with a site in Buffalo, NY with a 7206 as a critical WAN router the device name would be "G-NNYBUF01-WR01-H-7206". Or for Cisco's network with a 3845 in Tokyo serving as a low priority voice gateway: "C-AJPTYO01-VG01-L-3845". Country and city codes come from the UN Code for Trade and Transport Locations. Another nice addition, if appropriate, is an extended suffix to identify the exact device location with the following format: B# = Building F# = Floor C# = Closet (if appropriate) R# = RackSo, if the aforementioned Cisco router in Tokyo was located in Building 1, Floor 10, Rack C, the name would be extended to: "C-AJPTYO01-VG01-L-3845-B1F10RC". The names can get long but the extended suffix is crucial for helping remote technicians locate specific devices. Extended suffixes are also very useful in data centers. Above all, the naming convention should ease and automate functions for the network operations team. They should be able to read a device name and understand where the device is, what the device does, how critical it is, and what type of device it is. This can cut 10-15 minutes off their initial triage and speed outage resolutions. It also makes scripting and reporting easier. Now get out there and rename those "BUF-R1" devices. Join the Network World communities on Facebook and LinkedIn to comment on topics that are top of mind. Copyright © 2008 IDG Communications, Inc. Nir Dvir This article has been contributed by Nir Dvir – an IT Manager and blogger. This article aims to provide a common set of guidelines for handling large numbers of records in your IT environment. Applying naming conventions to IT records such as usernames, computer names, devices and other records will allow others to understand how assets are organised and structured. For example if your environment is spread across multiple countries or domain names one way to differentiate between elements is to use suffix names. This article is related to prefix differentiation, which can be a problem in local environments or databases. Not much attention is given to naming conventions in the IT environment, especially when starting out small. I remember my first network carried the names of characters from Joseph Heller’s novel, Catch-22. At first it was just for fun and it was very easy to remember Yossarian, Milo, Orr, and majorx4 (Major major major major). As my network got bigger, I ran out of funny name to choose, and things started to get complicated. I started using characters from the Greek, Roman and Viking mythology, till it became a nightmare. I had to come up with a method to help me identify nodes without remembering look-up tables in my head, so I started looking for some kind of common format. This would prove very useful when I used an asset management tool. In large network it is very common to use some kind of database to store records. Be it an LDAP (such as Active Directory), Yellow Pages YP/NIS, a DNS, a DHCP or a CMDB. This is why it is necessary to keep in your environment unique values for records such as computer names, usernames, asset tags and email addresses, so you can differentiate between them. Reasons for using naming conventions:
There are many ways to differentiate between elements, here are some examples: Physical differentiation – by the location of the object such as:
Logical differentiation – by the relation of the object such as:
 Physical and Logical differentiation in Top to Bottom view - Click to Enlarge Here are some examples that might clarify naming conventions. First examples relate to users and employees names. I’ll use my domain as an example but it can be any domain. The primary objective is to have uniformity in the convention when selecting computer names, usernames, email addresses or any other identifies, as they may affect the use
in an Identity management tool. His employee name – Should be recorded as John Doe, not john doe, John doe, Dow john, J0hN doW! or any other combination. If you have another John Doe in your company, you may use his middle initial or any other distinguishes.
Notes:
Now for John’s devices, a little background might help us decide on suitable names for his devices. His devices might be named as: His Laptop – chamkt-doej-lt I used the following schema: CH for the Chicago branch Some other devices around John might be: chamkt-prt1 – his departmental printer Other areas in IT where you can use naming conventions in a similar concept are:
Now remember, these are only examples. You should choose your own schema for your naming conventions as it best suites your organization. There are, however, some basic rules you should comply with. Basic Rules
Other Guidelines
Some References:
Summary: Naming records in a consistent and logical way will help distinguish between records in a glance. Naming records according to agreed conventions will make naming records much easier for all IT parties, it will streamline adoption of management application or new systems and allow a simple expansion of your organization. This article has been contributed by Nir Dvir – an IT Manager and blogger. Related articles:What is naming convention in networking?Naming schemes in computing
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