[ale] OT: Looking for good theme for network names

[Jeff Hubbs]

Network node naming is always a good way to lend character to a computing
environment.

I encountered planets as early as 1986.  Note:  stay away from SUN unless,
well, it IS a Sun and your only one at that.  My Linux machines here at work
have planet names.  My first ever NT server was MAINMACHINE (a play on the
"Mean Machine" football team from *The Longest Yard*).  Its replacement was
JUPITER and ITS replacement also became JUPITER.  Another JUPITER also arose
at my next employer and the NT desktops that utilized it became EUROPA, IO,
etc.  

Haven't used Greek letters, but avoid ALPHA unless, well, you know the
drill.  

Currently I'm using AZTEC and INCA (with OLMEC, MAYA, and TOLTEC on deck).  

My previous employer had fruits.  Note: avoid APPLE, yadda yadda.  

At the place where MAINMACHINE and the first of my JUPITERs booted, I
started piggybacking on the networked Novell printers.  I decided to name
them after great comedians and I reserved the right to be arbitary and
capricious about the list I chose from.  At various time, I had PEARL (I
probably wouldn't use that one anymore - sorry, Minnie...), PRINZE, BELUSHI,
FIELDS, KOVACS, and BERLE.  When I got a big honkin' 6-CPU ALR server a
couple years ago, I went for GALAXY.  

Desktop systems aside, I have found that if you give systems these kinds of
names and stick with them regardless of location, OS, etc. you can forget
about using little suffixes or things like "MAILSVR1" because if you
(singlular or plural) work with the machines all the time, you come to know
what each one does in much the same way that if I were to call out one of
your best friends' names to you, where they live, what they drive, where
they work, etc. would pop into your mind immediately.  

Besides, these days, I'm getting less interested in the "specialness" of
individual machines; philosophically I'm leaning toward a less tight
coupling between systems and apps these days (I'm preparing myself mentally
for org-wide SANS and distributed file systems).

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