OIT Host Name Standard¶

Scope: OIT
Type: Standard
Version: 2025

Goal¶

Define a standardized hostname format for virtual machines deployed within OIT-managed environments.

Ownership¶

This standard is owned by the Cloud Center of Excellence. Direct questions to the sponsor of the CCoE, Sarkis Daglian email redacted

Scope¶

Applies to all new compute resources provisioned by Windows Server Group (WSG), Enterprise Unix Services (EUS), Middleware, DBA, and Cloud teams—including EC2, on‑prem VMs, physical hosts, or PaaS workloads—created after adoption of this guideline

Timeline & Enforcement¶

All newly-provisioned OIT-managed hosts must be named according to this standard by June of 2026

Exceptions¶

Exceptions are granted automatically for hosts migrated via the ongoing ACDC project.

Additional exceptions can be granted by Sarkis Daglian in his role as the director of AI, Cloud & Client Solutions, with guidance from the Cloud Infrastructure team.

Requirements¶

Hostnames must be constructed with the following format:

[svc]-[env]-[role][nn]

The total length of any given hostname should not exceed 15 characters, to assist with Windows domain compatibility.

Hostname Components¶

Required hostname components (Short Host / Computer-Name) [svc]-[env]-[role][nn]

Component	Definition	Length	Example Values
svc	Service / application / business unit code (registered)	2 - 8 alpha	fin, edge, hr
env	Environment classification	1 alpha	see table below
role	Technical function	2 - 4 alpha	ap, db, ws, dc, lb, fs
nn	Sequence number per svc-env-role	2 digits	01-99

Standard Environment Classification¶

The following environment classifications are in wide use, and should be used whenever possible.

Code	Description
P	Production
N	Non-Production (shared sandbox)
D	Development
Q	Quality-Assurance / Test
S	Staging
T	Functional Testing

Extended Identity (FQDN & Tag)¶

The hostname is not meant to encode all possible information about a given host. The fully-qualified domain name of the host, as well as tags on the host, can be used to record any additional information that is needed.

FQDNs within the OIT-managed AWS environment follow the pattern: [hostname].[svc]-[env].[aws|aws-priv|ad].uci.edu

The [svc]-[env] component can be used to exactly determine the AWS account within which a host resides, and the aws or aws-priv subdomain informs whether the host has a public or private IP address, respectively. A host residing under the ad.uci.edu domain shows that it is a part of the WSG managed AD domain, and often will be a cname to an fqdn under aws.uci.edu or aws-priv.uci.edu.

Many more details can be carried within tags on the resource, for further information see the AWS Resource Tagging Standard

Examples¶

Purpose	Hostname	FQDN
1st PROD finance app in us-west-2	fin-p-ap01	fin-p-ap01.fin-p.aws-priv.uci.edu
2nd DEV DB for Edge in useast-1	edge-d-db01	edge-d-db01.edge-d.aws-priv.uci.edu
1st QA domain controller (Windows)	ad-q-dc01	ad-q-dc01.ad-q.aws-priv.uci.edu
1st Stage file-share server for HR, within the WSG AD domain	hr-s-fs01	hr-s-fs01.ad.uci.edu

References¶

This document supersedes the 2018 EA ID 19 guideline and defines the baseline hostname rules for the Office of Information Technology (OIT) as we migrate from on‑premises data centers to AWS Landing Zone accounts. It harmonizes Linux and Windows requirements (≤ 15‑character computer‑name), supports multi‑account / multi‑region cloud architecture