PC Naming Standards - Suggestions? 3

[WilWolitski]

If only the computer names in my company had some sort of naming convention that offerred some sort of meaningful insight into its function, purpose, location and/or user I could get my job done faster, more efficiently and with less stress.X-)

WHAT PC NAMING CONVENTIONS DO YOU USE? What is it based on? Do you have any other suggestions?

Please send me as many suggestions as possible!

How about ROI? :~/ Have you ever had to convince your manager that you needed to change the naming standards? What justification points did you recommend? [tt]Be a lateral thinker![/tt]

If you always do, what you always did​

​

[tt]Think outside the box[/tt]

You'll always get, what you always got!!​

 

[Highland]

We have (tried) to use a departmental naming convention, ie. the first PC we installed in our IT Department used the name ITS (IT Services (clever???!!!)) W (for workstation) (or S for Server..!!) and then a 3 digit number 001, giving the name ITSW001....we tried to define all services with a 3 character name...Personnel....PER....etc..etc...

Also in Server manager you can use the description field to add further info regarding each workstation within each Domain....

 

[Sudmill]

If your company is of a small size, then perhaps you could use country names or names of rivers, or football teams ... anything that is easier to remeber rather than nonstandard strings of numbers and characters!.

For a larger organisation its probably best to use something along the lines Highland suggested.

Justification will probably be hard, so you will first have to look at the level of effort required and work back from that !
Cheers

John (Sudmill)

 

[mcconmw]

I personally prefer a convention that specifies company, geographic location, dept, computer function, and then a number (hpdlbisws01). These naming conventions are tough on the tongue but easily allow for network growth. Using "friendly" names is often a mistake. If you suddenly open a second office or start growing quickly, you will suddenly find yourself needing a more precise convention and having a lot of work at a bad time to go and rename your existing equipment. Another good idea is to put labels on the fronts of all hardware specifying name, serial number, NIC, Video adapter, RAM, HD, and processor. This will save you hours not having to open the box to verify inventory or figure out hardware if you reload, etc. As far as how to sell it, I would call it an inventory audit or something similar. That will usually get the bean counters excited and things rolling.

 

[Guest_imported]

Perhaps the best naming scheme that I have used is using the TELEPHONE number for the computer name (or the extension).

Employees may come and go or move around but the computer is often tied to a particular extension...

...let me know if you would like more details.

 

[Nostradamus]

We have a WAN, almost over the entire country with 4000 pc:s.

This is an example of our naming standard.

noadmwjodo or sotecp0002

first two letters is location using the weather positions. no=north city(hospital), so=south and so on.

next three is department.
adm=administration tec=technical staff. (for instance)

next letter defines what equipment it is. s=server w=workstation p=printer and so on.

the four last digits are either a number or (if being a workstation) the first two letters in first name and two first letters in last name. john doe in the example above.

This makes pretty unique names. /Sören

 

[jennuhw]

I work in a small company currently and we use the person's first name followed by 01 or 02 depending on how many computers they have or have had. So for example, mine is jennifer01. One place I worked used their street address within the building. pc233524 would be a computer at the desk that is on 2235 24th Street. This was for a large company thats corporate office building was setup with address locations for each desk.

 

[butchrecon]

We use the position of the person (or server) followed by a #. Forinstance the receptionist (if we have 2 receptionists) Reception01 Reception02. In our Hardware Dept. Hardware01,Hardware02 and so on. Our Servers have our Company initials with a # after it. Managers have ther Dept and Manager after it. (HWMANAGER). So keeping each unique is not a problem. We have 2 offices on different subnets and with Hundreds of users and it works great. It makes it easy for when employees come and go for there is no omputer name changes. New employee comes in and begins using the PC.
You can do it anyway you feel is easiest though. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

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[Zelandakh]

Depends on the size of the company.

Name it as C for computer and then the IP address if you are static? This allows remote admin like PC Anywhere to work easily.

Personally, I use C001 and upwards and keep the lot in a database that is part of our helpdesk call log system. Therefore I only need to know their name and the system tells me everything else.

 

[AlexIT]

We chose to use the employee's first name and first initial of last name followed by computer type: "JaneD_Desktop." This works fine because, as employees turn over, we wipe the HD and re-install OS and all apps (ghost from master machine copy.) Keeps the machine clean from strange DLL's.

 

[peterve]

We're using

Domain Designation_CityCode_SiteCode_Fixed Asset Number

EG :

NACHCO190021
NA = NorthAmerica Domain
CH = Chicago
CO = Corporate Office
19021 = fixed asset ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be
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[MIScoord]

This is a situation that I'm beginning to explore with my network and all the suggestions are great. Currently, we have a hodgepodge of names. Some of the computers are the name of the individual user, but this can be problematic since some of our areas have a high turnover rate. Some have generic names (like Work 17), but this means I have to go to my audit manual every time I want to know whose computer that is. We're problably going to go through a complete server upgrade soon, and when we do, we'll probably rename all the computers at our outlying sites with some kind of code to designate where they are and the position of the person who uses them, since the offices of the positions rarely change, just the people in them.

 

[DevilDog]

I support all those that suggest the use of location naming conventions, as those offered by peterve. Super format. Of course, if you are a small mom&pop operation and will NEVER grow past 10 or so than you can use whatever; user names, etc. But, if you are a large firm than follow the example. Remember, the larger the firm the more often users and WHOLE departments wind up moving from office to office or floor to floor. I would hate to rename every PC in a department simply because they moved up 1 floor and I used F3 in my naming convention to identify the fact that they used to be on the 3rd floor. I would not even identify the building if you have multiple buildings for your office. The office name should be the lowest denominator, not counting the last set of numerics.
You may even throw in something like W95 for WIN95 or W98 for WIN98 or W2K for WIN2000......etc....
Be flexible. -- Devil Dog --

 

[dwango]

well i named my server with an under score, now remote access machines trying to access our local web page being pointed to that machine\directory gives nasty extension error.
I think this is the problem anyway
any help would be appreciated
how can i get around this without
renaming the server and all that goes with
that in our network.(20 machines with mail)
thanks
Evan

 

[ncvandy]

I would echo devildog with his comment on peterve's naming convention, it's a good format.
As for the server with the underscore, DNS does not like underscores. I would recommend changing the name by removing the underscore. When naming a machine stick with normal letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9) to avoid DNS resolution problems.
Once last comment, size of the organization can be a big factor in naming conventions. I am fortunate to be in a relatively small org even though we are spread out over several areas. Because we are small I can use a 3 letter building abbreviation following by the users last name. Makes finding a particular machine easy. Whichever scheme you implement it should follow a logical format to make identification easy for all folks in the IT department. This will facilitate the maintenance and troubleshooting efforts. Jim

 

[peterve]

good idea...
always keep in mind that your organization might grow, so including location abbreviations could be interesting... ---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be
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