One of the neat things you get to do if you run your own server hardware is to give your servers a name.

There is a great tradition behind this, and each system administrator has their own approach. Upstairs at silverorange you will find servers called “tangerine” and “navel.” The old CA*Net server at UPEI was called “atlas” (my first email address on the Island was caprukav@atlas.cs.upei.ca). The main PEINet server was “bud.” The servers that run the Province of PEI website are called, somewhat mundanely, “web1,” web2,” and so on.

When it came time to name the servers here at the Reinvented Data Centre, I chose my grandfathers’ first names, and thus you’ll find “dan” and “ross” in our server farm.

Just over two years ago, I installed two new servers for a local client, and named them “edward” and “wallis” after Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom he left the throne.

Unbeknownst to me, my client had been calling the second server “wallace” for two year, until I disabused him of this notion today.

Now that I have run out of grandfathers, I’m not sure where I’ll turn next. I have “nettie” and “louise” as grandmother names. And of course I also have 13 new great aunts and uncles to draw on now.