Intranet & Extranet

Intranet

An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols and network connectivity to securely share part of an organizations information or operations with its employees. Sometimes the term refers only to the most visible service, the internal website. The same concepts and technologies of the Internet such as clients and servers running on the Internet protocol suite are used to build an intranet. HTTP and other Internet protocols are commonly used as well, such as FTP. There is often an attempt to use Internet technologies to provide new interfaces with corporate "legacy" data and information systems.
Briefly, an intranet can be understood as "a private version of an Internet," or as a version of the Internet confined to an organization. The term first appeared in print on April 19, 1995, in Digital News & Review in an article authored by technical editor Stephen Lawton [1].

Contents

[hide]
     • 1 About Intranets
     • 2 Advantages of intranets
     • 3 Planning and creating an intranet
     • 4 See also
     • 5 References

6 External links [edit] About Intranets

Intranets differ from "Extranets" in that the former are generally restricted to employees of the organization while extranets can generally be accessed by customers, suppliers, or other approved parties.[2]

There does not necessarily have to be any access from the organizations internal network to the Internet itself. When such access is provided it is usually through a gateway with a firewall, along with user authentication, encryption of messages, and often makes use of virtual private networks (VPNs). Through such devices and systems off-site employees can access company information, computing resources and internal communications.

Increasingly, intranets are being used to deliver tools and applications, e.g., collaboration (to facilitate working in groups and teleconferencing) or sophisticated corporate directories, sales and CRM tools, project management etc., to advance productivity.

Intranets are also being used as culture change platforms. For example, large numbers of employees discussing key issues in an online forum could lead to new ideas.

Intranet traffic, like public-facing web site traffic, is better understood by using web metrics software to track overall activity, as well as through surveys of users.

Intranet "User Experience", "Editorial", and "Technology" teams work together to produce in-house sites. Most commonly, intranets are owned by the communications, HR or CIO areas of large organizations, or some combination of the three.

Because of the scope and variety of content and the number of system interfaces, the intranets of many organizations are much more complex than their respective public websites. And intranets are growing rapidly. According to the Intranet design annual 2007 from Nielsen Norman Group the number of pages on participants intranets averaged 200,000 over the years 2001 to 2003 and has grown to an average of 6 million pages over 2005–2007[3].

[edit] Advantages of intranets

1. Workforce productivity: Intranets can help users to locate and view information faster and use applications relevant to their roles and responsibilities. With the help of a web browser interface, users can access data held in any database the organization wants to make available, anytime and - subject to security provisions - from anywhere within the company workstations, increasing employees ability to perform their jobs faster, more accurately, and with confidence that they have the right information. It also helps to improve the services provided to the users.

2. Time: With intranets, organizations can make more information available to employees on a "pull" basis (ie: employees can link to relevant information at a time which suits them) rather than being deluged indiscriminately by emails.

3. Communication: Intranets can serve as powerful tools for communication within an organization, vertically and horizontally. From a communications standpoint, intranets are useful to communicate strategic initiatives that have a global reach throughout the organization. The type of information that can easily be conveyed is the purpose of the initiative and what the initiative is aiming to achieve, who is driving the initiative, results achieved to date, and who to speak to for more information. By providing this information on the intranet, staff have the opportunity to keep up-to-date with the strategic focus of the organization.

4. Web publishing allows cumbersome corporate knowledge to be maintained and easily accessed throughout the company using hypermedia and Web technologies. Examples include: employee manuals, benefits documents, company policies, business standards, news feeds, and even training, can be accessed using common Internet standards (Acrobat files, Flash files, CGI applications). Because each business unit can update the online copy of a document, the most recent version is always available to employees using the intranet.

5. Business operations and management: Intranets are also being used as a platform for developing and deploying applications to support business operations and decisions across the internet worked enterprise.

6. Cost-effective: Users can view information and data via web-browser rather than maintaining physical documents such as procedure manuals, internal phone list and requisition forms.

7. Promote common corporate culture: Every user is viewing the same information within the Intranet.

8. Enhance Collaboration: With information easily accessible by all authorised users, teamwork is enabled.

9. Cross-platform Capability: Standards-compliant web browsers are available for Windows, Mac, and *NIX.

[edit] Planning and creating an intranet

Most organizations devote considerable resources into the planning and implementation of their intranet as it is of strategic importance to the organizations success. Some of the planning would include topics such as:

     • What they hope to achieve from the intranet
     • Which person or department would "own" (take control of) the technology and the implementation
     • How and when existing systems would be phased out/replaced
     • How they intend to make the intranet secure
     • How theyll ensure to keep it within legislative and other constraints
     • Level of interactivity (eg wikis, on-line forms) desired.
     • Is the input of new data and updating of existing data to be centrally controlled or devolved.

These are in addition to the hardware and software decisions (like Content Management Systems), participation issues (like good taste, harassment, confidentiality), and features to be supported [4].

The actual implementation would include steps such as

     1. User involvement to identify users information needs.
     2. Setting up a web server with the correct hardware and software.
     3. Setting up web server access using a TCP/IP network.
     4. Installing the user programs on all required computers.
     5. Creating a homepage for the content to be hosted.[5]
     6. User involvement in testing and promoting use of intranet

Extranet

An extranet is a private network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organizations information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers or other businesses. An extranet can be viewed as part of a companys Intranet that is extended to users outside the company (e.g.: normally over the Internet). It has also been described as a "state of mind" in which the Internet is perceived as a way to do business with a pre approved set of other companies business-to-business (B2B), in isolation from all other Internet users. In contrast, business-to-consumer (B2C) involves known server(s) of one or more companies, communicating with previously unknown consumer users.

Briefly, an extranet can be understood as a private intranet mapped onto the Internet or some other transmission system not accessible to the general public, but is managed by more than one companys administrator(s). For example, military networks of different security levels may map onto a common military radio transmission system that never connects to the Internet. Any private network mapped onto a public one is a virtual private network (VPN). In contrast, an intranet is a VPN under the control of a single companys administrator(s).

An argument has been made that "extranet" is just a buzzword for describing what institutions have been doing for decades, that is, interconnecting to each other to create private networks for sharing information. One of the differences that characterized an extranet, however, is that its interconnections are over a shared network rather than through dedicated physical lines. With respect to Internet Protocol networks, RFC 2547 states "If all the sites in a VPN are owned by the same enterprise, the VPN is a corporate intranet. If the various sites in a VPN are owned by different enterprises, the VPN is an extranet. A site can be in more than one VPN; e.g., in an intranet and several extranets. We regard both intranets and extranets as VPNs. In general, when we use the term VPN we will not be distinguishing between intranets and extranets. Even if this argument is valid, the term "extranet" is still applied and can be used to eliminate the use of the above description."[1]

Another very common use of the term "extranet" is to designate the "private part" of a website, where "registered users" can navigate, enabled by authentication mechanisms on a "login page".

An extranet requires security and privacy. These can include firewalls, server management, the issuance and use of digital certificates or similar means of user authentication, encryption of messages, and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) that tunnel through the public network.

Many technical specifications describe methods of implementing extranets, but often never explicitly define an extranet. RFC 3547 [2] presents requirements for remote access to extranets. RFC 2709 [3] discusses extranet implementation using IPSec and advanced network address translation (NAT).

Contents

[hide]
     • 1 Industry uses
     • 2 Disadvantages
     • 3 Notes
     • 4 See also
     • 5 References

6 Further reading [edit] Industry uses

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, several industries started to use the term "extranet" to describe central repositories of shared data made accessible via the web only to authorized members of particular work groups.

For example, in the construction industry, project teams could login to and access a project extranet to share drawings and documents, make comments, issue requests for information, etc. In 2003 in the United Kingdom, several of the leading vendors formed the Network of Construction Collaboration Technology Providers, or NCCTP, to promote the technologies and to establish data exchange standards between the different systems. The same type of construction-focused technologies have also been developed in the United States, Australia, Scandinavia, Germany and Belgium, among others. Some applications are offered on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis by vendors functioning as Application service providers (ASPs).

Specially secured extranets are used to provide virtual data room services to companies in several sectors (including law and accountancy).

There are a variety of commercial extranet applications, some of which are for pure file management, and others which include broader collaboration and project management tools. Also exist a variety of Open Source extranet applications and modules, which can be integrated into other online collaborative applications such as Content Management Systems. Companies can use an extranet to:

   * Exchange large volumes of data using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
   * Share product catalogs exclusively with wholesalers or those "in the trade"
   * Collaborate with other companies on joint development efforts
   * Jointly develop and use training programs with other companies
   * Provide or access services provided by one company to a group of other companies, such as an online banking application managed by one company on behalf of affiliated banks
   * Share news of common interest exclusively with partner companies

[edit] Disadvantages

1. Extranets can be expensive to implement and maintain within an organization (e.g.: hardware, software, employee training costs) — if hosted internally instead of via an ASP.
2. Security of extranets can be a big concern when dealing with valuable information. System access needs to be carefully controlled to avoid sensitive information falling into the wrong hands.
3. Extranets can reduce personal contact (face-to-face meetings) with customers and business partners. This could cause a lack of connections made between people and a company, which hurts the business when it comes to loyalty of its business partners and customers.[4]

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