Intranet Basics:
Intranet Advanced:
Intranet Tips:
Intranets and Google:
What is an Intranet?
An intranet is a type of private computer network based upon the communication protcols of the Internet. It is, basically, a smaller version of the Internet that is created so that only designated personnel of a group or organization can see the information provided on it. An intranet is easily confused with the internet and an extranet, and since each have similar names, and do indeed perform similar tasks, distinctions can seem unclear. So let's clear the water, so to speak, and differentiate between the three.
An Intranet is Your Own Personal Internet
An intranet is used by most corporations, businesses, schools, and other organizations. It essentially allows these organizations to create their own “personal” internet to share with employees, students, and other privileged users. Same as the internet, your web browser is the universal interface and point of access for your intranet. It differs from the internet, however, since it restricts access to some users. An intranet by definition is not designed for public access at all. And as a site administrator, you can assign who has access or not.
Benefits of an Intranet
An intranet can provide a central point of access to reams of inforamtion distrinuted across your enterprise, consoikldating it all in one easy to use, browser-based interface. You can use the intranet to publish news, provide doucment management capabilities, and view company events. Any databases, documentation or infomation you want to organize or centralize can generally be worked into an intranet infrastructure. Briefly, the benefits on an intranet are:
- browser-based, meaning platform independent
- borswer based, so a universal user interface
- generally inexpensive to implement
- expandable over time as business needs grow
- enhances communication
- provides quick and easy access to corporate information
- archival and storage functionality
- search functionality
But where would we use an intranet? Let’s say that we are an insurance company. We have hired telemarketers to call customers when they are overdue on bills. To accurately give the latest information possible on all accounts, rules, and policies, we will need a centralized database of information. We can use an intranet to give everyone in the company access to this central database, and deny access to non-employees. If we wanted, we could even let the telemarketers work from home! We would just have to give the telemarketers a username and password for the intranet, and voila!
The intranet has a few simple benefits over using the internet instead. First, we would be saving resources. Every time a piece of information is requested on our company website, bandwidth is consumed. Not to mention that disk space must be consumed to host the files on the website anyway. Bandwidth can be costly, so the intranet is a good solution to cutting costs.
Most big organizations won’t have much of a need to save bandwidth - but they will appreciate the speed. Since the intranet files are stored locally, they can be accessed instantly. Sure, faster forms of internet can seem instantaneous, but then again - that consumes bandwidth. Not to mention that internet access sometimes fails. Although intranets can fail as well, they are far less likely to do so if they are properly designed.
A Closer Look
If we look closer at what an intranet is, we see that it has a lot of similarities to the internet. For instance, intranets use internet protocols and protocol suites. Intranets will commonly use the HTTP or FTP protocol - perhaps even the email protocol known as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or SMTP.
But how do extranets fit into the equation? So far we have established that an intranet and the internet are very similar, but do indeed have differences. Extranets and intranets differ mostly in the fact that extranets allow public access to the network’s stored information. Since extranets allow public access, extranets usually need better performing hardware to support it. Imagine we are running the insurance company again - and we have around 100 employees and 50,000 customers. It would obviously take a lot more resources to handle 50,000 customers than to supply your 100 employees with an intranet. Likewise, extranets can generally cost more on average.
In case you needed any more proof that extranets are a great deal more complex, take into consideration about who you are targeting. Public access means that most people around the world may be browsing your extranet. This means that you must take into account that some users will have different web browsers, languages, resolutions, and connection speeds. Compare this to the intranet, where the company is aware of all of these factors. Obviously, extranets can prove to be quite the hassle in comparison.
Closing Comments
Extranets, intranets, and the internet - say that three times fast! It isn’t a hard concept to grasp, yet still there are a lot of people who haven’t even heard of an intranet. And that’s unfortunate news, because intranets continue to grow in popularity and ease of implementation, providing tangible business and communication benefits. At one time, intranets were being used in mostly corporations - but now schools and other organizations are getting in on the act.
If we have learned anything from the past, it’s that once technology rears its head - it is just getting started. It’s best to get these concepts down early to keep up with the technological advancements of tomorrow. Don’t be surprised if you start to see intranet and extranet configurations spread like wild fire - because after all, isn’t efficiency the ultimate goal of any organization?
