Intranet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet Protocol technologies to

securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system
within that organization. The term is used in contrast to internet, a network between
organizations, and instead refers to a network within an organization. Sometimes the term
refers only to the organization's internal website, but may be a more extensive part of the
organization's information technology infrastructure. It may host multiple private
websites and constitute an important component and focal point of internal
communication and collaboration.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Characteristics
• 2 Uses
• 3 Benefits
• 4 Planning and creation
• 5 See also

• 6 References

[edit] Characteristics
An intranet is built from the same concepts and technologies used for the Internet, such as
client–server computing and the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). Any of the well known
Internet protocols may be found in an intranet, such as HTTP (web services), SMTP (e-
mail), and FTP (file transfer). Internet technologies are often deployed to provide modern
interfaces to legacy information systems hosting corporate data.

An intranet can be understood as a private analog of the Internet, or as a private extension

of the Internet confined to an organization. The first intranet websites and home pages
began to appear in organizations in 1990-1991. Although not officially noted, the term
intranet first became common-place among early adopters, such as universities and
technology corporations, in 1992.[dubious – discuss]

Intranets are also contrasted with extranets. While intranets are generally restricted to
employees of the organization, extranets may also be accessed by customers, suppliers, or
other approved parties.[1] Extranets extend a private network onto the Internet with special
provisions for access, authorization, and authentication (AAA protocol).
Intranets may provide a gateway to the Internet by means of a network gateway with a
firewall, shielding the intranet from unauthorized external access. The gateway often also
implements user authentication, encryption of messages, and often virtual private
network (VPN) connectivity for off-site employees to access company information,
computing resources and internal communications.

[edit] Uses
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 customer relationship management tools, project management etc.,
to advance productivity.

Intranets are also being used as corporate culture-change platforms. For example, large
numbers of employees discussing key issues in an intranet forum application could lead
to new ideas in management, productivity, quality, and other corporate issues.

In large intranets, website traffic is often similar to public website traffic and can be
better understood by using web metrics software to track overall activity. User surveys
also improve intranet website effectiveness. Larger businesses allow users within their
intranet to access public internet through firewall servers. They have the ability to screen
messages coming and going keeping security intact.

When part of an intranet is made accessible to customers and others outside the business,
that part becomes part of an extranet. Businesses can send private messages through the
public network, using special encryption/decryption and other security safeguards to
connect one part of their intranet to another.

Intranet user-experience, editorial, and technology teams work together to produce in-
house sites. Most commonly, intranets are managed by the communications, HR or CIO
departments of large organizations, or some combination of these.

Because of the scope and variety of content and the number of system interfaces,
intranets of many organizations are much more complex than their respective public
websites. Intranets and their use 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.[2]

[edit] Benefits
• Workforce productivity: Intranets can also 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.
• Time: Intranets allow organizations to distribute information to employees on an
as-needed basis; Employees may link to relevant information at their
convenience, rather than being distracted indiscriminately by electronic mail.
• 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. Some
examples of communication would be chat, email, and or blogs. A great real
world example of where an intranet helped a company communicate is when
Nestle had a number of food processing plants in Scandinavia. Their central
support system had to deal with a number of queries every day (McGovern,
Gerry). When Nestle decided to invest in an intranet, they quickly realized the
savings. McGovern says the savings from the reduction in query calls was
substantially greater than the investment in the intranet.
• 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, newsfeeds, 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.
• 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 internetworked enterprise.
• 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. This can potentially save the business money on printing,
duplicating documents, and the environment as well as document maintenance
overhead. "PeopleSoft, a large software company, has derived significant cost
savings by shifting HR processes to the intranet" [3]. Gerry McGovern goes on to
say the manual cost of enrolling in benefits was found to be USD109.48 per
enrollment. "Shifting this process to the intranet reduced the cost per enrollment
to $21.79; a saving of 80 percent" [3]. PeopleSoft also saved some money when
they received requests for mailing address change. "For an individual to request a
change to their mailing address, the manual cost was USD17.77. The intranet
reduced this cost to USD4.87, a saving of 73 percent" [3]. PeopleSoft was just one
of the many companies that saved money by using an intranet. Another company
that saved a lot of money on expense reports was Cisco. "In 1996, Cisco
 processed 54,000 reports and the amount of dollars processed was USD19
million" [3].
• Promote common corporate culture: Every user is viewing the same information
within the Intranet.
• Enhance Collaboration: With information easily accessible by all authorised
users, teamwork is enabled.
• Cross-platform Capability: Standards-compliant web browsers are available for
Windows, Mac, and UNIX.
• Built for One Audience: Many companies dictate computer specifications. Which,
in turn, may allow Intranet developers to write applications that only have to work
on one browser (no cross-browser compatibility issues).
• Knowledge of your Audience: Being able to specifically address your "viewer" is
a great advantange. Since Intranets are user specific (requiring database/network
authentication prior to access), you know exactly who you are interfacing with.
So, you can personalize your Intranet based on role (job title, department) or
individual ("Congratulations Jane, on your 3rd year with our company!").
• Immediate Updates: When dealing with the public in any capacity,
laws/specifications/parameters can change. With an Intranet and providing your
audience with "live" changes, they are never out of date, which can limit a
company's liability.
• Supports a distributed computing architecture: The intranet can also be linked to a
company’s management information system, for example a time keeping system.
• (wikipedia.org)

What's the Difference Between an

Intranet and the Internet?
Date: Sunday, October 31 2004
There's one major distinction between an intranet and the Internet: The Internet is an
open, public space, while an intranet is designed to be a private space. An intranet may be
accessible from the Internet, but as a rule it's protected by a password and accessible only
to employees or other authorized users. From within a company, an intranet server may
respond much more quickly than a typical Web site. This is because the public Internet is
at the mercy of traffic spikes, server breakdowns and other problems that may slow the
network. Within a company, however, users have much more bandwidth and network
hardware may be more reliable. This makes it easier to serve high-bandwidth
content,such as audio and video, over an intranet. (allbusiness.com)

(Skullbox.net)