As we enter an era of electronic commerce and increased global competition, organizations must not only rightsize their resources, they also need to strategically blend intranet and Internet solutions. As we discovered in our research and in the writing of the Strategic Networking book, this strategy should be part of an overall plan that is driven by clearly articulated organizational goals and objectives.
With the rush to exploit the Internet as a public internetworking medium or to only use its technologies for private, enterprise-wide intranets (see Network Learning Links table), a careful examination is needed to discover how either or both of these choices can meet the challenges of organizations in a networked world. When successfully planned and implemented, these technologies can reduce the cost of doing business, increase communication within and outside the organization, keep you informed about your competition, and deliver products and services in a timely manner (see sidebar: Making Strategic Networking Choices).
The criteria for choosing intranets versus the Internet are both technological and social. When wide-area networks connect computers, they connect people. And people communicate when they connect. To realize the true value of network communications between people, organizations need to articulate the types of communication they need to take place, the type of information to be communicated, by whom, and for what purpose.
To define the need for technology, an organization's communications can be broken down into categories such as internal versus external. Internal communications between members of the organization is generally strategic and thus should be kept secure. External communications are more varied, such as marketing and sales conducted with the prospective and current customer base, negotiations between strategic partners, and using public sources of information for research.
Thus, a further delineation of external communications should be made to account for the nature of the information and the need to keep it private or secure. For example, on an Internet Web site, a company might offer information about its products and services for which anyone could access, but another segment of that site (or a separate intranet) might offer subscriber information or involve transactional information such as credit card numbers, etc. Thus, external communications should be further categorized under non-secure versus secure communications.
Besides the need for immunity against unwanted intrusion, internetworked computers can suffer from poor quality of service. This is often caused by unanticipated load due to too many users using too much bandwidth. Both of these factors can result in a loss of service and threaten the survival of the organization. As the Internet is subject to much greater exposure to these threats, a more tightly controlled intranet is often seen as a clear alternative.
However, there are technological solutions to these problems that can prevent or at least limit their impact on the organization. For example, to prevent security breaches, firewalls (see Network Learning Links table) can be placed between the outside world and the organizations' guarded resources. Encryption can be employed to secure the content of communications and authentication can be used to verify the sources of communication. Thus, security, bandwidth, and throughput are essential technical factors to consider when choosing to employ the Internet or an intranet, or some combination (see sidebar: Making Strategic Networking Choices).
Intranets can be used to provide high quality and timely delivery of content from servers to clients within an organization, making use of the Internet from behind firewalls only when necessary. They connect LANs and WANs using popular Internet protocols (see Network Learning Links table) such as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol), and ftp (File Transfer Protocol).
As intranets can use Internet protocols and applications, they offer most of the same benefits. Except for providing the network infrastructure and access to meet the needs of their users (which can be costly and complex), intranet developers can rely on robust, well-documented, and cross-platform Internet technologies that are designed to handle the heterogeneous base of UNIX, PC, and Macintosh systems. And a great variety of applications can be downloaded from the Internet (see Network Learning Links table) at low or no cost.
Intranets not only provide a secure environment for the enterprise, but they can use much of the existing network infrastructure. That can make a big difference in the bandwidth and throughput for transmitting data, especially if the content is rich in multimedia, such as images, audio, and video. Unlike textual information, multimedia can use up to 10,000 times more network bandwidth. As anyone accessing the Internet via modem knows, the amount of time it can take from the moment you request a Web page loaded with graphics until you actually receive it can be considerable.
As most organizations need to trim costs while increasing productivity, videoconferencing (see Network Learning Links table) over an intranet can offer a cost-effective alternative to many face-to-face meetings, especially where attendees are remotely located. In the past, analog audio and videoconferencing systems were complex and costly, but this same multimedia data can be inexpensively and efficiently transmitted as digital data over intranets at 10Mbps and higher. A wide variety of Internet conferencing applications can be used from interactive Web pages and text-based chat to audio and IP telephony (http://vocaltec.com/) and video conferencing (http://www.cuseeme.com.
Many organizations are using intranets to replace more costly groupware and e-mail applications with custom intranet implementations costing just a few thousand dollars. The portable and scaleable nature of Internet technologies let organizations deploy pilot or short-term applications for workgroups that can grow as needed, right up to global enterprise-wide systems.
Costs are likely to increase as custom and complex intranet applications are developed, such as those that connect to data warehouses or provide real-time secure transaction systems (see Network Learning Links table). However, since intranets are based on relatively inexpensive browser front-ends with Web server-driven applications at the back-end, many feel that long-term savings will outweigh the costs. This is partially due to the fact that many of the programmatic bugs that are encountered will usually be confined to the custom intranet applications themselves, not the browser or Web server applications.
But what are the real-world benefits and applications of intranets? One major benefit of intranets is enhanced communication which in turn can lead to improved collaboration within the organization. This communication can occur between workgroups, departments, or perhaps entire organizations simply by posting content to intranet Web servers. It can eliminate paper-based documents which have a tendency to become outdated over time. Increased communication can also lead to a reduction in spending for such processes as creating, printing, and distributing internal information. Besides Web and conferencing technologies, collaboration can be enhanced by the use of internal newsgroups and mailing lists. Information posted to the newsgroups and distributed via mailing lists can be made available to selected groups within the organization and archived as a repository of information.
Using Internet technologies on an intranet means that organizations can deploy integrated applications that span public and private networks using the same applications and data. For example, Mobil Oil Corporation (http://www.mobil.com/) uses an intranet to provide their personnel with an efficient way to share internal company information and let workgroups collaborate on projects. However, using the Internet, they also distribute financial data and news announcements to customers, shareholders, and others outside the company. The Mobil Web site also offers prospective customers an opportunity to conveniently apply for Mobil's credit cards or "prepaid" Go cards and to purchase merchandise offered in their Web-based catalog.
The product development teams at Silicon Graphics (http://www.sgi.com/) use their company's intranet to get their products to market faster. The intranet also facilitates communications between sales, service, and remote field teams around the world, allowing the company to capitalize on areas of expertise in various locations. As with Mobil, Silicon Graphics employs Internet technologies in conjunction with their intranet solutions to educate customers and their worldwide sales force about new products. Prospective customers can find product information including photos, datasheets, and success stories, as well as check on the availability of the latest Silicon Graphics software releases. Back on the intranet safely behind their firewall, the company publishes an electronic sales guide with important information their worldwide sales force needs to sell their products.
Just as the Internet is not actually one autonomous network but rather the global interconnection of many networks (and their respective cultures), so too are the diverse and multiple means by which individuals and organizations access and use its services and applications for various activities.
With millions of interconnected systems and users, the Internet offers a way for organizations to globally compete. The low cost of entry and global reach associated with establishing a Web site levels the playing field between organizations with respect to their size or technology investment. However, the quality of that presence plays a much bigger role in terms of its technical and communicative function.
The World Wide Web is by far the most popular choice for a public presence on the Internet. It can provide a single platform for developing a corporate identity, advertising, and marketing products and services. An O'Reilly and Associates study (http://www.ora.com/www/index.html) indicated that 57% of the companies surveyed felt that using Internet technology resulted in an improvement in their business environment (http://www.ora.com/research/business/index.html).
Whether tracking cargo (http://www.fedex.com/) or tracking customers, an increasing number of organizations are using Internet technologies to deploy useful business applications. But is Internet technology the right choice for you? The answer depends on the goals and objectives of your organization and how they match up against criteria such as the types of communications, the nature of transactions, etc. (see sidebar: Making Strategic Networking Choices).
For example, the objective of the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/) was to deploy an interactive version of their daily newspaper. Internet technology was a good choice because the information in their publication is public and freely available, thus security is not a major issue. The Internet also provided a convenient way to offer timely coverage of major news stories to readers at their desktops anywhere the world.
Although Ben & Jerry's (http://www.benjerry.com/) Internet site started out as a private business system for their employees and franchisers, the focus of the site was soon shifted to the consumer. Thus, to satisfy the universal desire for their product, they developed a Web site on the Internet that offers information such as ice-cream flavors and products, scoop shop locations, sponsored film and music festivals, factory tours, as well as their business philosophy.
In some cases, a public Web site on the Internet is needed to provide the easiest and most global access, while providing a high degree of security for sensitive transactions. The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) (http://www.cbot.com/) implemented its integrated Web site to allow the exchange to conduct secure electronic commerce and communications on a global basis. Visitors seeking recent quotes, educational material, or other information can get it all on-line 24 hours a day.
From just a brief look at these few business cases, it's clear that successful networking choices begin with well-defined goals and objectives based on an organization's needs and capabilities. Only then are the objectives matched to available network technologies. Specific networking strategies and tactics are negotiated from this match-up. For some objectives, intranets are the clear choice, especially when internal communications must be kept secure or when the bandwidth and throughput must be optimized for multimedia and real-time communications.
For other objectives, the Internet offers an unprecedented opportunity to reach a global base of users in manner that is convenient for them while providing extremely low-cost of entry and maintenance for the organization. Ultimately, the real question is not Internet versus intranet, but rather when and how each of these related networking strategies should be deployed to serve the many and changing needs of any organization.
Initially, intranets used Internet technology (protocols such as TCP/IP and applications such as Web servers and browsers) in support of small workgroups (see Network Learning Links table). For these uses, access and availability are easy to forecast. As the need within the organization for external information grows, the intranets not only need to grow in size (number of servers, etc.), but they also need to provide access to and from the Internet. Once connected to the Internet, the organization can become a provider of information instead of just a consumer.
However, because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, intranets can quickly become bogged down as the demand for access to network resources grows both within the intranet and from the Internet. As organizations make increasing use of intranet and Internet technologies, access and availability issues can be tough to diagnose. Administrators must now provide solutions to problems on both sides of the firewalls used to secure the intranet from unwanted external access (or even within the firewall itself). If the intranet is to be consistently available to handle requests, whether they originate from within the organization or the Internet, considerable margins are needed in the capabilities and implementation of hardware and software (e.g., routers, switches, hubs, firewalls, Web servers).
The network applications and services your organization uses to leverage their network technology can be a challenge to select, implement, and manage. Besides acquisition costs, the hardware and software (e.g., Web servers, browsers, databases, firewalls, etc.) used to build the intranet can require substantial investments in hardware and support. The same is true when it comes to the network communication services (e.g., ISDN, T-1, ADSL, etc.) used to connect your intranet to the Internet (see Network Learning Links table).
Many organizations employ Ethernet-based LANs, which operate at speeds up to 10Mbps. Fast Ethernet offers 100Mbps (see Network Learning Links table) and industry groups have recently submitted new proposals for achieving gigabit speeds over Ethernet. Token-ring LANs offer 4 and 16Mbps data transfer rates. To provide dedicated connectivity of their intranets to the Internet, many organizations also use high-speed digital communications links, such as a T-1 or ISDN. T-1 services offer a maximum of 1.554Mbps of bandwidth. ISDN-BRI provides a rate of 128Kbps (Basic Rate Interface) and ISDN-PRI (Primary Rate Interface) offers up to 1.544Mbps of bandwidth. The emerging ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) technology boasts rates up to 10 times faster than ISDN. This means that using ADSL, a typical Web page could be downloaded by a client up to 50 times faster than with a 28.8Kbps modem over traditional copper wires.
Thus, because the bandwidth on your intranet is generally much higher than that of your link to the Internet, intranet applications may seem slow when accessed via the Internet. For example, you might find that the audio and video quality of a videoconferencing application over your Ethernet-based intranet (10Mbps) is quite acceptable. However, using the same application over a lower bandwidth T-1 link (1.554Mbps) to the Internet could result in degradation of the video (i.e., it appears uneven and spotty), while the audio would most likely be acceptable.
There a number of issues that can affect the performance and quality of applications and services delivered over the network. These include the availability of clients and servers, the size of the network, the number of simultaneous users, and the amount and type of data to be transferred. One strategy to help reduce performance bottlenecks on busy networks is the use of switching technology (see Network Learning Links table) in components such as hubs. A switching hub uses a technique called micro-segmentation, which helps reduce contention for bandwidth. By dividing the LAN into separate segments with a dedicated port for each node, each connected network component (e.g., workstations, servers, etc.) can access the network at the full bandwidth of a medium.
Security is the foremost concern when it comes to balancing intranets with Internet capabilities. Hardware and software such as firewalls, gateways, and proxy servers (see Network Learning Links table) provide secure access and internetwork communications between private, or trusted, networks and public, or untrusted, networks such as the Internet. They can also regulate communications between organizations over an intranet or the Internet. However, advanced tools that can be used to exploit weaknesses in security make it possible for even the novice user to gain unauthorized from the Internet and also from within your network. Industry surveys have found that a majority of security breaches can be traced to users within the organization.
The rapid growth of the Internet has lead to increased threats of security breaches from outside the organization, as well. Very often, in the case of Web-based information, the risk might not be a hacker trying to actually steal sensitive corporate information, but rather someone making unwanted changes to the data. How you secure your intranet or Internet resources and information should depend on the applications and services provided.
For example, security for financial transactions over the Internet might be handled differently than the security for clients browsing an internal Web directory over an intranet. Secure versions of Web server software (see Network Learning Links table) encrypt the information that travels over the network and require a secure version of the browser on the client side as well. Keep in mind that the safety of your applications (e.g., Web servers) is only as secure as the operating system (e.g., UNIX, Windows NT, etc.) they are installed on. Many operating systems have certain security risks that must be considered. Whether you make use of intranet or Internet technologies, or a combination of both, a strategically implemented enterprisewide security policy detailing the account, network, and data security requirements of your organization is an absolute necessity.