Intranet

An intranet is a HTTP (web services), SMTP (e-mail), and FTP (file transfer protocol). 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

References

• eGranary Digital Library
• Enterprise portal
• Intranet portal
• Intranet strategies
• Intranet Wiki
• Intraweb
• Kwangmyong (intranet)
• Local area network
• Private network IP-addresses to be used inside private networks
• SharePoint
• Virtual workplace
• Wide area network
• Web portal

See also

Intranet software

Another useful component in an intranet structure might be key personnel committed to maintaining the Intranet and keeping content current. For feedback on the intranet, social networking can be done through a forum for users to indicate what they want and what they do not like.

• Securing senior management support and funding.^[13]
• Business requirements analysis.
• Identify users' information needs.
• Installation of web server and user access network.
• Installing required user applications on computers.
• Creation of document framework for the content to be hosted.^[14]
• User involvement in testing and promoting use of intranet.
• Ongoing measurement and evaluation, including through benchmarking against other intranets.^[15][16]

Intranets are often static sites. Essentially they are a shared drive, serving up centrally stored documents alongside internal articles or communications (often one-way communication). However organisations are now starting to think of how their intranets can become a 'communication hub' for their team by using companies specialising in 'socialising' intranets.^[12] The actual implementation would include steps such as:

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.^[11]

• The purpose and goals of the intranet^[8][9]
• Persons or departments responsible for implementation and management
• Functional plans, information architecture, page layouts, design^[10]
• Implementation schedules and phase-out of existing systems
• Defining and implementing security of the intranet
• How to ensure it is within legal boundaries and other constraints
• Level of interactivity (e.g. wikis, on-line forms) desired.
• Is the input of new data and updating of existing data to be centrally controlled or devolved

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

Planning and creation

• 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 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. [6]
• Web publishing allows cumbersome corporate knowledge to be maintained and easily accessed throughout the company using hypermedia and Web technologies.^[7] 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 usually 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.^[7]
• 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. For example, the HRM company PeopleSoft "derived significant cost savings by shifting HR processes to the intranet".^[6] 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". Another company that saved money on expense reports was Cisco. "In 1996, Cisco processed 54,000 reports and the amount of dollars processed was USD19 million".^[6]
• Enhance collaboration: Information is easily accessible by all authorised users, which enables teamwork.^[7]
• 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). Being able to specifically address your "viewer" is a great advantage. Since Intranets are user-specific (requiring database/network authentication prior to access), you know exactly who you are interfacing with and can personalize your Intranet based on role (job title, department) or individual ("Congratulations Jane, on your 3rd year with our company!").
• Promote common corporate culture: Every user has the ability to view the same information within the Intranet.
• Immediate updates: When dealing with the public in any capacity, laws, specifications, and parameters can change. Intranets make it possible to provide your audience with "live" changes so they are kept up-to-date, which can limit a company's liability.^[7]
• Supports a distributed computing architecture: The intranet can also be linked to a company’s management information system, for example a time keeping system.

Benefits

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.^[5]

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.

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.

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.

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.

Increasingly, intranets are being used to deliver tools, 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.

Uses

In many organizations, intranets are protected from unauthorized external access by means of a network gateway and firewall. For smaller companies, intranets may be created simply by using private IP address ranges. In these cases, the intranet can only be directly accessed from a computer in the local network; however, companies may provide access to off-site employees by using a virtual private network, or by other access methods, requiring user authentication and encryption.

). AAA protocol Extranets extend a private network onto the Internet with special provisions for authentication, authorization and accounting ([4] Intranets are sometimes contrasted to

[3]