Asset tagging naming convention

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NatalieT86

Asset tagging naming convention

Hi,

I am planning on tagging some of our IT assets so we can keep better track of everything. I had a few naming conventions which I thought about using but they seem to be a bit too complicated. I decided to do something simple. I thought about having a prefix of numbers which represent Countries. For example:
US 320
UK 321
Germany 322
France 323 etc

Then, just having a sequential number. I did think about including abbreviations for the type of device (L for laptop, D for desktop), but thought that it would be useless information as the type of device would be in our CMBD anyway. Plus, it meant I would have loads of different types of stickers - could get messy

Tags would look like this

320-00001

320-00002 etc

323-00001

323-00002 etc

Does anyone else do something similar?

Status: Open Jul 22, 2019 - 05:43 AM

asset tags, tag naming conventions

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Niall Eddery

Jul 24, 2019 - 09:46 PM

Putting countries in naming conventions makes sense as long as your estate is relatively static; but no need to invent new codes, just use the ISO codes; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

As for anything else, depends on how you are going to use it, how static the environment is to support it. I have seen:
- OS indicators; largely pointless as any inventory tool should have this
- Server/desktop/ laptop etc; again largely pointless
- environment indicator; Dev/ test/ DR/ Prod/ Staging/ training etc. This can be very useful as inventory tools don't capture, but if devices move between enviroments (eg test > Staging > prod) then this is ineffective
- Business unit indicator; can be useful
- function indicators (APP/ DB etc) not very useful, especially as some servers can have multiple functions

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Stephen-Parker

Jul 22, 2019 - 09:01 PM

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here, whatever suits the organisations and your requirements should be adopted.

I've seen a few varieties, XXXXX = a seqentual number sequence.

ITCWSXXXXX - for workstations/desktops
ITCNBXXXXX - for laptops
ITCDCXXXXX - for datacentre related items, switches, servers, storage etc.

Other places have used RIASPXXXX for mobile devices and RIWCLXXXXX for laptops and something similar for infrastructure equipment.

Having a prefix at the beginning can help identify the type of asset you're dealing without having to see it or look in the CMDB to get the answer. Ultimately as long as they're all unique and tracked accordingly you'll be off to a good start.

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Gemma Walker

Jul 22, 2019 - 09:25 PM

From a SAM providor point of view naming conventions are brilliant and help identify all sorts of things (be aware - with some vendors use this to create worst case positions at Audit so never provide real server names). However you are focusing on the desktop - on that side of things the really useful things are dept or country codes. Virtual and Physical is determined by Serial Number. From a SAM point of view "how many" is generally the bit I need to know - not much else. However for your tracking purposes Dept/Country codes are very helpful.

Its much more useful on the server side. Especially between Production / Dev / UAT - so again with the country code - some customers just add a straight "DEV" or "UAT" into the server name, others use a -1 , -2, -3 etc to denote its function. Clusters tend to be 123456A and 123456B - again easy to spot. But then others to -1 and -2 for their clustering.

Overall, the consistant message from all our customer base is the hardest thing to do is maintain the rules! So keep them clear and simple and good luck!

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