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Intranet Applications

The Web is a networked information system based on hypertext. Hypertext allows you to navigate through networked resources at the click of a button. Using a client application called a browser, you can select highlighted keywords or specified hot areas within a document to quickly and automatically navigate to a new document. Browsers are in fact your window to everything the World Wide Web has to offer. Using Web technologies, you have instant access to anything your company publishes and it is this information-on-demand feature that makes the Web such a hot commodity.

Beneath the system of hypertext documents and the wonderful graphical interface that makes it all work is a complex network-the Internet. The Internet is a global network of millions of computers. Many different technologies are used on the Internet to find, send, and retrieve information.

Trillions of research dollars went into developing the Internet and the tools that make it work. Since some of it was paid for with your tax dollars, wouldn't it be nice to put this technology to work for you and your company? This is where intranets come in.

An intranet is a network within an organization-an internal network-that adapts Internet technologies for use in its information infrastructure. Worldwide, the most common Internet technology put to use within organizations is the Web's hypertext system. For this reason, many developers associate Web publishing on an internal network with intranets.

Using your intranet as a publishing solution, employees throughout your organization can quickly find answers to questions. They don't have to search massive policy manuals or learn the commands to interface with the company database. To find information, all they have to do is click on a hypertext reference or enter a word or two at a prompt.

Ideally, your intranet puts to use many different Internet technologies including Internet e-mail, FTP, Telnet, and Web services. You might be wondering why you might want to use all these Internet services. After all, most networks are set up for file transfer with FTP, remote host logins, and e-mail. However, your internal network probably uses commercial software designed for a specific operating system. Further, this software is probably not entirely user and administrator friendly.

Take e-mail for example. Most networks use an e-mail system. In a large organization, mail gateways and servers are needed to transfer e-mail from one area of the network to another. These gateways and servers are responsible for translating or encapsulating the protocol of the e-mail software so your messages are readable on the receiving end.

Maintaining this maze of servers and gateways is the responsibility of the network administrator. When the system fails, as it inevitably does from time to time, users may lose mail and the administrator may lose sleep. By using an e-mail system designed for the Internet, you can end the nightmare. Users on any platform, be it UNIX, Mac, or Windows, can use the same software to send and receive messages. But best of all, you eliminate the necessity for e-mail servers.