Some of the network gear is named simply ‘router’, ‘switch’, etc. You can also tell where a particular device is located just by its IP address. Is there a recommended way to name the equipment?
The network in my company is expanding to where it covers not only multiple floors within a building but to multiple buildings as well. Things have evolved over time to where each person doing the job did things to their liking – which changed as each person took over the position. I am concerned that, to make things manageable and easier to update, that this is something that needs to change before the network grows any further. Some of the network gear is named simply “router”, “switch”, etc. You can also tell where a particular device is located just by its IP address. Is there a recommended way to name the equipment?
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There is no one right way to name equipment. The first thing I would suggest looking at is Cisco’s Network Design model and how it looks at a network from the Core, Distribution and Access layers. Look at how your current network equipment inventory fits into this model.
There are several ways to identify the equipment. If all of your buildings are in one centralized area, you can start the name with an abbreviation for the building name, followed by the floor, where on the floor the equipment is located and the type of device you are naming. For locations in the building, you might want to look at some type of a numbering system referencing columns by a row and number system. If your building is smaller, you might be able to just assign a number to the column; for larger buildings, a grid system using a letter and number approach might make more sense.
As the locations on the network grow to encompass multiple cities and or divisions, your scheme may need to change. The more planning you do now, with a little bit of forecasting for what “might” happen may come very close to giving you a system that may require very little if any change. Look at the different ways of naming the equipment planning out things on paper to get an idea of what will have the best look and feel as well as being easy to work with. You should also be able to tell what type of device you are working with based on the name assigned to a device as to if it is a switch, router, access point, etc. A name such as HR01B12R3 could identify a particular device as in the HR building, 1st floor, column B12, and that it is the 3rd router in the equipment stack as this location. The shorter you can keep the name will make it easier to keep up with but having the names be as meaningful as possible will make the system/process easier to use.
This type of approach will be a bit of a job to get started and to keep up with but in the long run will definitely help in keeping things manageable. As your company grows, you may end up getting involved in some type of ISO certification process where you may not have any choice but to have this kind of naming scheme in place. Keeping good documentation is something that should go hand in hand with this naming scheme/system as well. The more documentation you can put in place now will also serve well into the future to help keeping you on track for continuing to use the system instead of doing it one way today and another way tomorrow.
