The Executive's Basic Guide to Intranets

1. What is an Intranet?

Simply put, an intranet is a private network that uses the open standards and protocols of Internet technology to seamlessly link different corporate resources (i.e. databases and other existing information systems) and integrate them into a common, unified internal information structure that is accessible across all platforms. In other words, when Internet technology is applied and used inside a corporation or organization, and (in most cases) open only to its employees, it is generally referred to as an intranet.

An intranet is built using the same basic underlying architecture and network protocols for communicating and exchanging data that form the Internet --primarily the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP)-- which can be run on multiple hardware platforms and across different cabling schemes, enabling the exchange of information across otherwise incompatible networks. Intranets also utilize other Internet protocols like SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) for e-mail, and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) for World Wide Web publishing and browsing, both internally and externally on the Internet.

Most intranet technologies, like those on the Internet, are client-server based. However, intranets are generally more complicated than the Internet itself. For one thing, Internet-specific protocols have to co-exist and cooperate with a company's other established network protocols such as Novell's IPX. Intranets are often composed of a variety of different local area networks (LANs), and "legacy systems," including mainframes, Novell networks, minicomputers, and various databases, to form a computing infrastructure which must all be hooked together in a way that is invisible to the user. Also, certain bandwidth-intensive applications common to intranets --such as groupware and videoconferencing systems-- require a more sophisticated infrastructure built for speed in order to be properly implemented.

Although the underlying architecture used in an intranet is the same that is used to form the Internet, there are some differences between the two. Since the Internet is a decentralized, open network of networks loosely governed in a voluntary, cooperative manner, it is not generally secure and cannot be controlled. An intranet, on the other hand can be secured and controlled in such a way as to allow its users access to the Internet while preventing outsiders from gaining access to the various private internal resources that are linked to it. Additional security measures can be taken to block access to certain sites or resources on the Internet and traffic in and out of an intranet can be carefully monitored.

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