Hello,

We are currently trying to resolve the very same issue. So far we plan to use following scheme:

1) Device name should be concatenation of following parts:

<2 letters of ISO country code> http://www.bcpl.net/~jspath/isocodes.html

Not a bad start, but somewhat unnecessary given next field.

<3 letters of airport city code> http://www.ufreight.com/faq/airport_code/airport_code_by_ac.html

Doesn't scale. Not all cities where POPs end up have airports. Additionally, do you use the closest airport, closest major airport (by what definition), etc. Further, if you go to 4 letter airport code, then you can use the full ICAO abbreviations and you eliminate the need for your previous field. examples: KSJC = San Jose, California, US ELHR = Heathrow, London, UK CYVR = Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada KACV = Arcata, California, US (actually in McKinleyville, CA)

<3 letters of location> to be created

Probably helps solve previous problem somewhat, but creates a certain amount of arbitrariness that makes the naming convention harder to deal with and tends to introduce naming errors.

<4 letters of device name abbreviations> to be created -- in case of cisco: model number

So a Cisco 12008 is abbreviated how, vs. say a 12016, or a 1201? Additionally, someone person needs to have central control of a database of these designators, and there comes a tradeoff between specificity and viability at some point. In most cases, functional purpose turns out to be more desirable than equipment type information in the host name. (Such as IBR == Internet Border Router, etc.)

<1 letter separator> arbitrary decided to be capital letter X (no DNS nor arithmetic exp problems)

Hmmm... I probably would have used either U or I for that, but X is as good as any, I suppose. Does improve readability.

<1 letter device ordinal> can be hex if needed

And when you end up with more than 16 7513's in the same location, what do you do? Do you start with 0 or 1? Do you end with 0 or F?

Examples: USMIANOC3662X1 - Miami Lakes NOC cisco 3662 USMIATPL7206X1 - Miami Teleplace cisco 7206 USMIANAPJM20X1 - Miami NAP Juniper M20 VEBRMPOP2501X1 - Venezuela, Barquisimento POP, VE cisco 2501 VACCSCTV1010X1 - Venezuela, Caracas CANTV collocation, cisco Lightstream 1010

2) We will also create DNS zone ???core.net which will be used in two main ways:

a) reverse DNS lookup, to map IP addresses into hierarchical names, like: serial1-0-0-128-<customer_name>.USMIATPL3662X1.TelePlace.mia.us.ifxcore.net This will be mainly used for tools like traceroute, etc.

b) straight DNS lookups of devices itself, like: USMIATPL3662X1.ifxcore.net This will be used to get easy access to a device itself (through Loopback), and due to mnemonic nature of device name should be easy to memorize.

So far the only problem we run into with this scheme is 12 character limit on hostnames on some boxes.

File a bug report with the vendor. The RFCs are clear that this is not valid.

Przemek

I would propose a better alternative if I had one. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a naming scheme that didn't have problems. I will say that the following components of naming schemes I have run across tend to work fairly well: CLLI codes for geographic locations (SNTC = Santa Clara California, JYCY = Jersey City, New Jersey, etc.) These are the codes used to describe where you called on your phone bill. They do scale to most international scenarios (LNDN=London, UK, etc.) If your network is architected in such a way that devices have consistent functional groupings, then using that functional grouping as a portion of the name tends to work fairly well. Usually, for example, I'm much more concerned with getting to the router that does the particular task than with what model of hardware it is when I'm trying to reach it. It's much more useful to connect to ibr01.sntc01... than to C12016X01.sntc01, because I may or may not know which 12016 in that location is the IBR vs. some other function, and I may not be able to remember whether that particular IBR is a 7513, 12016, or something else. Numbering starting at 1 vs numbering starting at 0 both have their share of tradeoffs. I prefer starting at 0, because I find most humans can adapt to that fairly quickly. By starting at 0, you end up with the ability to use mod 2 computations for pairs of routers. Starting at 1, the math becomes more complex (1 pairs with 2 instead of 0 pairs with 1). That's my $.02. Owen

-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Kurt Erik Lindqvist Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 9:21 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: 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 -