Purpose of an Intranet
An intranet is an increasingly popular type of network used by many organizations around the world to keep their business more paperless and their employees more productive. Nearly every company that allows its employees to access computers during the workday has a need for an intranet because of the many varied benefits that it offers.
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History
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The idea of the intranet was first discussed in an article discussing the benefits of "little Internets" to businesses in a 1995 issue of "Digital News and Review." Intranet use has expanded exponentially since then with many mid to large size businesses taking advantage of them. While early intranet consisted of only a few dozen or hundred web pages, a study released by the Nielson Norman Group in 2007 showed that the average intranet currently consists of 6 million or more web pages.
Function
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An intranet is a restricted network that only allows specific computers, such as those within a business or other organization, to access the web pages contained within it. A single gateway server filters requests from all of the connected computers to access web pages housed on the intranet or web pages outside on the wider Internet.
Features
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An intranet takes advantage of the same networking protocols that the standard Internet uses, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Most intranets also use a special kind of communication called "port forwarding" which prevents email messages from being sent outside the network or from being viewed by people outside the network.
Benefits
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The primary benefit of an intranet is that it allows the employees of a business to instantly access materials that would normally have to be printed out hundreds of times such as training materials, policy manuals or human resources updates. It can also be used as a means for employees to communicate with the company's upper management so that there is a free exchange of ideas and comments.
Considerations
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Most intranets restrict access to the majority of external websites, such as MySpace or Google, to prevent employees from surfing the web or playing online games. They can be set to allow certain websites in however, such as a book company allowing access to Amazon to search for used books for a customer.
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