[Hans M Aus]

Our network has an AppleTalk zone named "aaa" and a Windows "zone" named "AAA" where AAA = aaa is the name of our department. The network is flaky with the two zones sporadically dropping in and out.

Is it a bad idea to have this lower and upper case name similarity?

[ghporter]

That's a VERY bad idea! Your network probably isn't dropping out, but your clients are getting confused! I'd go with something like
AAA_MAC for the Macs, and AAA_WIN for the Windows machines.

The problem comes down to whether or not the client software sees a difference between the two nework names. I have seen clients that don't care about case, clients that only care when they first connect to a specific network, and clients that always care. For better performance, and much less frustration, change the names to make them definitely different.

[Hans M Aus]

Many thanks for confirming my suspicion Glenn.