Best practices for naming new blades in a new data-center

[Jeff Byham]

I have a customer that is purchasing their first set of blades. The customer has two data centers in two different cities within the same state. The blades are the go forward solution for production / development / testing. The customer has asked me to find out what are the best practices for a naming convention for the racks & enclosures?

For the rack I have suggested a three character city code, then a 3 character code for PRD/DEV/TST, followed by a four character rack number (R001).

For the enclosure I was thinking of the three character city code, the four character rack code then a five character enclosure code (ENC01).

My thought was that if a problem arose then if you hear the name of a rack / enclosure you knew which city it was in and approximate location. The customer does make use of a floor grid (A,B,C..1,2,3) on the walls. I was thinking about including this info in the rack name to identify a specific location.

I welcome any and all suggestions that are posted and Thank You in advance for your time.

[James ~ Happy Dude]

Hello Jeff,

That indeed is a flawless way to name the Enclosure & rack; Easy, simple & very efficient; Yes, in case of trouble, you can know where exactly to look for !

& just for the Record:
Enclosure Nameâ The default setting is a unique factory-assigned name. The accepted character values are 0â 9, Aâ Z, aâ z, -, _ and . is used to signal the end of the name.
NOTE: Do not use the symbol in the middle of a text field. Entries in text fields will be
truncated to the last character before the symbol.
TIP: Select Clear from the navigation bar to quickly clear entries in text fields up to the symbol.
Rack Nameâ The default setting is UnnamedRack The accepted character values are 0â 9, Aâ Z, aâ z, -, _ and . is used to signal the end of the name.
Insight Display PIN#â The default setting is Not Set. HP recommends that you set a PIN to protect the enclosure configuration from unauthorized changes. You must enter the PIN after each inactivity period to change options in the Enclosure Settings menu. The accepted character values are 0â 9, Aâ
Z, aâ z, -, _ and . is used to signal the end of the name.

h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00698286/c00698286.pdf

James.

[Adrian Clint]

Are they using RDP and SIM?

RDP uses the right most 15 characters of --nn (nn is bay no)

so newly deployed servers will not have the function or City displayed in their name when they first boot PXE into RDP.

SIM can link enclosures to racks in reports so there is no need to duplicate information.

I'd make the enclosure name the minimum possible eg E001...E999. And each enclosure is best named uniquely as you will get several E001 displayed in SIM if you sort by name and they are not unique. Can get confusing.

I try and recommend that customers make this information the minimum.

Do you really need 3 chars for city?
Why PRD/DEV/TST why not P/D/T?
Dont they number their racks already?