Labeling and naming

For a project I am currently working on I stumbled upon the following. What is the best way to lable and name equipment? Although this applies to all equipment such as SDH ADMs, IP, ATM etc I realised that it seems to be hardest to find a sensible convention for IP equipment. Preferably I would like to find a convention that fits all, but I guess that is utopia. So, since list contains, PTTs, Telcos, ISPs and wannabees is there any good common scheme or pointers to something useful? - kurtis -