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2022-04-01 Devops

Naming Things

Naming things#

More care must be taken around the naming of things

Naming things as a Cloud Architect#

When you architect a system you might build and configure it but not be involved in day-to-day operations. But a host of other people are: automations, operations, implementations, Managed IT services and Service Centre staff.

If we can save just a few seconds of confusion and frustration - making things more obvious - then we would have saved everyone hours and days of time and customers even more when things get resolved faster.

It may take a lot longer to think of a meaningful name but you could be saving days for other people.

Names should be:

  • Consistent
  • Obvious

Adding features across new regions becomes easier when names of things are consistent across regions.

You want to give the minimum to make it distinct.

Things to avoid:

  • Unnecessary large name
  • Inconsistent naming.
  • Knowing the difference between display names and ids. Automation teams will use the id or uuid while frontend users will use the display name. Don’t mix the display name with the id
  • Case - keep the same case
  • Spaces - no spaces - if possible for api related stuff

Know who is using your system#

Users should know where to go - in an obvious way and not require a lookup.

For example to go to ovirt management console:

ovirt.example.com

Is obvious. xkm65099vm.example.com is not.

Sources#