How are you using the "location" and "contact" fields in SNMP?

I'm at a point where I'm deciding what the standard should be to standardize all of our SNMP field devices across 8 sites (mostly colocations, but also two offices). I'm trying to think of how I want to use these two fields.

​

# Location:

I see a few options:

1. Datacenter name (e.g. "New York City", "Salt Lake City Headquarters")
   1. This is a bit redundant since the hostnames already contain that data (e.g sw-slc-tor-3)
2. Datacenter name and rack or closet - "New York City - Rack 2", "Salt Lake City Headquarters - Closet 280"
3. Longitude and latitude (e.g. "39.474365,-100.403449"

# Contact:

A few options

1. They're all set to the group mailbox of the singular team that manages it all (kinda lame, useless) - "[operations@example.com](mailto:operations@example.com)"
2. Set to the email or phone number of the colocation (where applicable)
3. Re-used for something creative

​

I'm thinking in the context of network monitoring tools, as well as inventory and provisioning systems. All of these are underdeveloped in our environment so I have a hard time coming up with a solid case for which of those options fill our current needs. One of our monitoring tools does automatically group devices based on SNMP location, and then you can put other data in the NMS about that location (like GPS coordinates).

​

What are you doing? Have you seen any clever re-use of any of these fields?