Track · 2:30 · Liner note
The Servers Have Fruit Names
Naming servers after a theme such as fruit makes machines memorable, which suits a small fleet but breaks down at scale, where role-based names and automation matter more.
Mango, plum, quince: a fleet named after fruit is easy to remember and charming to say in a standup. The Servers Have Fruit Names celebrates that tradition of naming machines like pets, which works while there are a dozen of them and each one has a story.
At scale the pets become cattle. Names should carry role, environment and region, and be assigned by automation, while the hand-picked names go to the few machines you truly keep by hand. Naming is an operations decision. It is fine for it to be fun, too.