Intranet and Extranet: Uses and Rules of Extranet

Earlier Article: Intranet and Extranet: Extranet

An organization uses the Internet to communicate public information about itself to members of the organization and to others outside the organization. And like we already discussed, Intranets and Extranets are private versions of the Internet.

An organization uses an intranet to share information between the members of the organization. Organizations use extranets to exchange information with and provide services to their business partners (customers, suppliers, etc.)

An extranet requires security and privacy that require firewall server management, the issuance and use of digital certificates or similar means of user authentication, encryption of messages, and the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) that tunnel through the public network.

What are the uses of Extranet?

Companies can use an extranet to do the following tasks:

♦ Share product catalogs exclusively with wholesalers or those "in the trade";

♦ Collaborate with other companies on joint development efforts;

♦ Jointly develop and use training programs with other companies;

♦ Provide or access services provided by one company to a group of other companies; and

♦ Share news of common interest exclusively with partner companies.

With competitive advantage as the ultimate prize, two fundamental drivers are propelling large enterprises to the extranet: market consolidation and service externalization. Markets are consolidating as the pace of merger, investment, and acquisition intensifies. Yet within companies, core services are also increasingly being externalized, delivered by a network of external parties that includes outsourcers, demand and supply chain partners, consultants, and contractors.

Rules of Extranet

This dynamic environment presents clear business needs, which can be summarized as the Five Rules of the Extranet which are as follows:

♦ Be as flexible as the business:

An extranet must be driven by the demands of the market, not the limitations of technology. It must be extremely flexible and allow companies to immediately deploy extranet services that best fit the business need, be it intimate supply chain partners using a wide range of applications or mass e-commerce extranets driven by Web-based applications.

♦ Deploy in "Internet time":

To deploy an extranet, companies shouldn't have to roll out a new infrastructure or go through a major re-architecting of their applications. To remain market-driven, enterprises must be able to deploy their extranet quickly, and leverage their existing infrastructure to do so.

♦ Protect the interests of the data owner

Extranet services need to be deployed in a fast and flexible way, but with the complete assurance that only the correct users can access the right services. An extranet must ensure that what's supposed to be private stays private.

♦ Serve the partner as a customer

An extranet presents a very important and delicate balance: providing customer service to key partners (who might also be customers) in a competitive environment with mission-critical resources at risk. The final solution must be an extranet without compromise. Partners should never be required to change their security policies, networks, applications, and firewalls for the "good" of the extranet community.

♦ Drive information to the decision-maker

An extranet must provide a central means to measure progress, performance, and popularity. Business units deploying applications need to understand which extranet content and applications are most successful.

That’s all on Extranet. We shall continue the discussion with a couple of articles on E-commerce. Stay tuned for that.

If you have any queries, doubts or suggestions please let me know. Click on ask a question on the left panel of your screen.

Thank You