Intranets and Extranets
We'll start this discussion with an assumption: Intranets and Extranets can bring great benefits and the sooner you deploy them the better. Many case studies have been written to illustrate this. Here's one from CIO Magazine.
If you are confused by the distinction, here's a quick summary:
- Your intranet is where you share information internally to your company or some defined group within it.
- Your extranet is where information is shared with specific external parties such as your customers and business partners
- Your public website is open to all
There are no clear-cut boundaries here ... but you get the distinction. Most companies will end up with some mixture of all three, although the order of priorities varies widely.
The elements of a solution include at least:
- Information repositories
- Navigation tools, including search
- The ability to contribute information as well as extract it
- Management systems to look afterinformation currency and pertinence
Once you embark on your Intranet through Extranet project you need to decide how to build it. There are a number of ways:
- Wide-area PC Networkusing a "Virtual Private Network" (VPN)
- Intranet-in-a-box web server solution
- Semi-custom development
- Full custom development
As always, one man's meat is another's poison.The best solution depends on your particular requirements and priorities.
The arguments for and against each may be summarized as follows:
|
+ |
- |
| PC Network |
Familiar technology offering a great deal of flexibility |
Requires expensive hardware to use it effectively. Insufficiently constrained. Easy for anarchy to reign. |
| Intranet-in-a box |
Quick and low cost |
May not support the security and information management models required for Extranets |
| Semi-custom |
Enough flexibility and good value for money |
Requires planning |
| Full custom |
No limits or boundaries |
Can be very costly. High skill requirements. No sharing of maintenance cost with others. |
|