Intranet Journal: Getting Started-The Elements of Intranet Style

The Elements of Intranet Style

By Eric Brown and James W.Candler

Excerpts From

Chapter One

"Don't Even Think of HTML, Servers, or a Budget Before You Read This..."

THE BASIC CONCEPT

What's an Intranet?

An Intranet is a network of computers within a corporation or portion of a corporation. The computers are connected to each other by means of the Internet Protocol. This internal network is separated from other networks and computers outside by "firewalls." Firewalls, in effect, act as a moat separating the Intranet from other networks and other computers. The firewall is a means of preventing unauthorized access to the internal network from the outside. The Intranet is a protected neighborhood of computers within the larger city of the Internet. When you allow access to someone else. s Intranet, that site becomes an Extranet for your users.

A computer Local Area Network (LAN) has geographic boundaries usually defined by the routing of a special cable to which all computers on the LAN are connected. Since burying cables across streets is expensive, this normally means the LAN is restricted to a floor, a building, or a campus. An Intranet has no such boundaries and is available wherever standard telephone lines can be found.

IP (Internet Protocol) is built to run on telephone lines, not big cables. Intranets can. t replace LANs entirely because of another major difference . speed. If data were water, computers on a LAN would be connected by pipes about a foot in diameter; on the Internet they would be connected by 1 inch pipes. As a result, applications meant to run on a LAN would die a slow, horrible death if they were run on the Web.

Wide Area Networks (WANs) are groups of Local Area Networks connected with large pipes, expensive telephone lines. Since the Internet is not a large pipe, it. s not much help for connecting WANs to one another. Wide Area Networks will never replace the Internet because of their geographic limitations and the expense of large pipes.

Understand these schematic and technical concepts, but begin your planning with the commitment to create a network of people who happen to be using an invisible network of machines to serve those people.

BOTTOM LINE

An Intranet is an internal network of computers secured and protected by firewalls. This definition changes if we move to one worldwide network, the Internet.

Intranets are too slow to replace LANs entirely.

WANs will never replace the Internet because of their geographic limitations and expense.

< Table of Contents

Planning Your Intranet >

To purchase or find out more about The Elements of Intranet Style go to fatbrain.com or Communications Associates.

The Authors

Eric Brown founded his consulting firm Communication Associates in 1980. His clients include major Fortune 500 companies who use his presentation design, communication training, writing services, and web expertise in many contexts. He is author of Throw Away Your Pencil: Writing with a Word Processor (Prentice-Hall), of The FedEx Personnel Division Intranet Style Book, is a Houghton Mifflin Finalist, a writer for Hearst publications, and many professional journals.

James W. Candler is currently Vice President of Personnel Systems and Support at Federal Express where he has worked for the last 18 years. In that time he has been responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of the company's on-line, reql-time human resource information system called PRISM. PRISM has resulted in all employees being able to access personal, benefit, and similar HR information at the stroke of a key. Most recently he has led the development of Personnel.link, the FedEx Personnel Division corporate Intranet.He has presented across the nation and written frequently for IHRIM.link: A Publication of the Association of Human System Professionals where he has also served as editor.