RE: Network Naming Conventions

[Erik L <erik_list () caneris com>]

Hey Paul,

> Core1-rtr-to-ge1-1-1-vl20.nexicom.net
>
> Core box #1, rtr=router, to=location, ge1-1-1=interface, vl20=vlan etc
> etc....
That's disturbingly similar to ours :)

tflns2-ge0-1-vl1.caneris.com

TF = Toronto/Front
LNS #2 = LNS #2 
ge0-1 = interface
vl1 = VLAN 1

> Going forward, I'd like to examine a better method to identify the
> devices.... does anyone have published standards on what they use or
> that of other networks and maybe even why they chose those 
> methods?  
One of my colleagues has written an overview and pros/cons of the most common naming conventions (purpose, geographic, 
purpose+geographic, and "themes") at http://www.watson-wilson.ca/blog/name-conv.html. He's a systems guy, so it's not 
written in the context of net ops, but some of the ideas are common. 


> But what do folks do for "aggregation devices" such as 
> dial-up shelves,
> BAS devices etc?
See my example at the top.

> Finally, we have a fair amount of gear (that we own) at customer
> premises that act as either a managed device or a demarcation 
> point ....
> how to you name those today?
Currently similarly to this:
MANAGED-DSL-1xxxx, where the 1xxxx is the account number. At the time it was decided to use this for no other reason 
than when a box/link goes down, it's trivial to find the customer/contacts in the OSS since the device name in the 
monitoring alert already has an account number embedded in it. Silly reason perhaps, but it's simple and it works.
 
> Open ended questions obviously - looking for many ideas. 
There are many ways of doing it and many factors to consider, I'll just throw some food for thought:
-Purpose / device type
-Geography 
-Hierarchical naming
-Scalability of the naming system
-DNS
-Humans - who's using the names and how? Reading/writing - how/frequency? What information do you want to convey (for 
obvious reason, this may vary greatly depending both on the target and the device)?
-Systems - what else is using your names or may be using your names in future? OSS/provisioning/monitoring/graphs for 
interfaces - automated? Limitations on character set and length of name, e.g. DNS, stupid switches with absurdly short 
max lengths of port description fields, etc. A regexp can come in handy to define this (and perhaps your entire naming 
scheme) precisely. In a heterogeneous environment, you have all sorts of stuff where you may have two or more names to 
refer to the same thing.
-Prefixes/suffixes
-Mergers and acquisitions - what happens when you have to merge your network with someone else's? Though I can see the 
value of prefixing, I don't like naming conventions which prefix everything with an abbreviation of the company for two 
reasons:
        -Typing extra keystrokes repeatedly every day for no reason isn't fun
        -Sorting/lists don't work nicely, especially when you would otherwise use a key to go down to the first letter 
of a name
-Traceroutes: I recall reading the slides from a NANOG presentation (unfortunately I don't recall the author's name and 
don't have a link now) which discussed naming devices in a traceroute-friendly way (friendly as in meaningful to those 
outside the org as well); you might want to find this.
-Finally, look at how others do it - there are plenty of examples

Erik

________________________________________
From: Paul Stewart [pstewart () nexicomgroup net]
Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2010 10:47 AM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Network Naming Conventions

Hi Folks...



With many changes going on this year in our network, I figured it's a
good time to revisit our naming conventions used in our networks.



Today, we use the following example:



Core1-rtr-to-ge1-1-1-vl20.nexicom.net



Core box #1, rtr=router, to=location, ge1-1-1=interface, vl20=vlan etc
etc....



Going forward, I'd like to examine a better method to identify the
devices.... does anyone have published standards on what they use or
that of other networks and maybe even why they chose those methods?  The
core of the network is fairly easy for us to look at different changes
where you have interfaces, subinterfaces, locations etc. to deal with.



But what do folks do for "aggregation devices" such as dial-up shelves,
BAS devices etc?



Finally, we have a fair amount of gear (that we own) at customer
premises that act as either a managed device or a demarcation point ....
how to you name those today?



Open ended questions obviously - looking for many ideas.



;)



Paul








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