Intranet

An intranet is a private network (usually a LAN, but may be larger) that uses TCP/IP and other Internet standard protocols. Because it uses TCP/IP, the standard Internet communications protocol, an intranet can support TCP/IP-based protocols, such as HTTP (the protocol that Web browsers uses to talk to Web servers), and SMTP and POP (the protocols that e-mail client programs use to send and receive mail). In other words, an intranet can run Web servers, Web clients, mail servers, and mail clients and it can work like a small, private Internet. As the Web has become the most talked-about Internet service, intranets are also known as internal webs, because they allow an organization to have its own private Web sites to be used only by users on the intranet. However, like the Internet, most intranets also carry lots of e-mail traffic: all those paper memos that used to float around large organizations have largely been replaced by e-mail messages.

Advantages and Disadvantages of an Intranet

• Intranets use standard protocols. Internet protocols such as TCP/IP are used on a huge number of diverse computers. More development is happening for.
• Internet-based communication than other types of communication. For example, intranet users can choose from a wide variety of e-mail programs, because so many have been written for the Internet.
• Intranets are scalable. TCP/IP works fine on the Internet, which has millions of host computers. So you don’t have to worry about your network outgrowing its communications protocol.
• Intranet components are relatively cheap and some are free. Because the Internet started as an academic and military network (rather than a commercial one), there is a long tradition of free, cheap, and cooperative software development. Some of the best Internet software is free, including Apache (the most widely used Web server), Pegasus, and Eudora Lite (two excellent e-mail client programs).
• Intranets enable you to set up Internet-style information services. You can have your own private Web, using Web servers on your intranet to serve Web pages to members of your organization only. You can also support chat, Usenet, telnet, FTP, or other Internet services privately on your network. Push technology (Web channels) can deliver assignments, job status, and group schedules to the users desktop via his or her browser.
• Intranets let people share their information. Everyone in your organization can make their information available to other employees by creating Web pages for the intranet. Because many word processing programs can now save documents as Web pages, creating pages for an intranet does not require a lot of training. Rather than printing and distributing reports, people can put them on the intranet and send e-mail to tell everyone where the report is stored.

Intranets have some disadvantages too:

• Intranets cost money. You may need to upgrade computers, buy new software, run new cabling, and teach people to use the new systems.
• People in your organization may waste time. If you connect your intranet to the Internet, people may spend hours a week watching sports results or checking their stock options.
• You will need policies in place to determine how the intranet may be used.