[damagednoob]

<data center location><no><environment><purpose><no>

e.g. lon1prodapp001, lon1testdbs001, nyc1testweb001

And here's a regex that describes it: http://rubular.com/r/rdEZU9qJ6L

I hate meaningless server names. It's cute for the first 3 but once you're over 10 you won't remember the difference between the 'obsidian' and 'sovite' servers. Which one is production and which one is dev test again?

At least with a logical naming scheme, you'll have a reasonable idea whether you're even on the right server or not.