Flying in the face of convention?

[phn at icke-reklam.ipsec.nu]

Bob Chmara <news at chmara.com> wrote:

> Other than a basic understanding of DNS, I'm new to the subject.  Yet
> I've been asked to lend my thoughts to the development of a new DNS
> schema for a rather large organization.  I'd like to get some feedback
> on my thinking.

> Some particulars:
> - 300,000 to 400,000 hosts
> - spread over 15 or so countries from every continent except
> Antarctica
> - Many of the hosts are concentrated in campuses, though others reside
> in widely dispersed small offices
> - Ignoring the particulars of incorporating MS Active Directory into
> the schema (for now anyway)
> - Also ignoring zone and delegation issues (next phase of the
> analysis)
> - The current proposition is to use a schema like:
> host.site.country.company.com
> - The country level would follow the two-letter ISO 3166 codes
> - The site level would use an internal three-letter coding system
> - The host names would conform to a structured naming system

> My thoughts on this proposal:
> - I'm OK with the proposed structure for the individual host names.
> - I agree with using a geographically based schema and I have no
> problem with using the ISO 3166 country names.
> - I feel the site codes are a bad idea. The sites number in the
> hundreds and the existing list of site codes has many codes that
> appear arbitrary, defeating any notion of mnemonic naming.
> - I also don't like the rigidity of the site.country portion of the
> proposed schema.  Given that the distribution of hosts varies greatly
> from country to country, the limitation of using only two levels below
> company.com seems like an artificial limitation imposed for the sake
> of consistency, even though that consistency works against the
> benefits offered by a hierarchical structure.

> I'm not looking for suggestions on how to structure this domain,
> rather I need feedback on whether or not my objections bear any
> validity.
> - Is such a rigid structure the norm for large organizations?
> - If so, what are the benefits?

Lots of work 

> - If not, what are the pitfalls of a less rigid approach and how might
> they be mitigated?

Forcing a monilitic structure of this size across a large portion of the globe
needs a dictatorship. Do you have that power ?

Relaxing a bit, using countrycode TLD in each country, will save everyone
tvo levels of indirection + it will give you a possibility of "local presense"
in each country. 

> - Are there any suggestions on how to justify a less rigid approach?

You need about so much structure to get things going. Above that is 
overkill and will actually be harmful the day you need to restructurize.



> Thanks for your attention,
> Bob Chmara


-- 
Peter Håkanson         
        IPSec  Sverige      ( At Gothenburg Riverside )
           Sorry about my e-mail address, but i'm trying to keep spam out,
	   remove "icke-reklam" if you feel for mailing me. Thanx.