Meaningful names are fine if you have enough servers that every single server can do one thing. But in smaller circumstances the 'web' server may need to do dec

Meaningful names are fine if you have enough servers that every single server can do one thing. But in smaller circumstances the 'web' server may need to do decidedly non-web tasks. And it's difficult to know this in advance, so trying to name things meaningfully will only cause confusion when someone discovers that the database server is running apache or the web server is hosting the local office nfs mounts. I like the use of something like elements because it lets you use the character of the element as a sort of metaphor for the function of the server - but since it's a metaphor and not a clear name it's understood that you can't rely on the name to know what the server does, and you should keep it documented.