Desktop Naming Scheme

[bwatson283]

I am the Inventory lackie in the IT department. I would like to standardize computer names on our corporate network and in the field as best as I can.

The only standard we have is one franchise that we bought into, the desktop needs to be named on these lines for other software vendors doing support. EX: The POS company.

TX%sitenumber%PC1

Corporate:

CPpayroll1

Field:

%sitename%%employee title%

We are in the Food and Bevarage/Hospitality industry, so we will these kind of field users:

F&B Directors/GM's

Restaurant MGRs

Catering

etc........

What are some standards that everyone uses? Are the thoughts above maybe to easy to determine/mess with for hackers?

 

[RebateMonger]

Generally, it's not a great idea to name computers for their purpose,, department, or user. Those all change, and they also identify the purpose of the computer and the user name, so it makes it easier for hackers to find the "valuable" computers and their user names.

In small businesses, I don't use a "numbering" system because it makes it harder for users to remember their computer when viewing Remote Access lists. It's easier to remember a unique computer name (i.e. "Blue", or "Pluto").

 

[Brovane]

We use company name, site location and numbers for computers name and then 8 characters. So by just looking at a computer you can tell where it is located geographically, the department it is located in and then if the desktop person did there job right the persons name. We have over 40,000+ computers using this scheme where I work nationwide. It seems to work fine.

 

[Jamsan]

We do company initials, dash, sequential number (i.e. XXX-1, XXX-2, etc.). Each physical PC is tied to a logical computer name. If we wipe a laptop and reuse it, it gets the same name. If we EOL a machine, no computer ever gets that number again. We also label desktops and laptops with the name to make it easier when we ask a user what their PC name is.

The previous places I've been, they either did it by the person's username (which got annoying if a person got a new PC, as it would usually be jsmith2 for the 2nd PC and so on - we kept their old PCs around for a short period) or at a larger place (very scary), whatever it came from the factory as!

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Six numerical digit asset number issued by the university. So our naming convention for non-server systems is pd######.

At home, machines are named using the Periodic Table of Elements.

 

[mcmilljb]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Six numerical digit asset number issued by the university. So our naming convention for non-server systems is pd######.

At home, machines are named using the Periodic Table of Elements.

That's the kind of style I like. At once place we used some identifier with the serial number. I liked having the serial number as part of the computer name because I knew it was unique for all the computers. I would have tweaked it by making the identifiers non descriptive so if you saw "AA-XXXXXXX", you knew it was department "AA" but didn't know what department it is.

 

[jlazzaro]

[3 digit city][city number, starting from 1]-[asset tag]