Vineet Pathak
Onward Novell Software India Ltd.
Saki Naka, Andheri (East), Mumbai-400072.
Abstract: The word "Internet" is used almost synonymously with the Internet and for any system where connectivity comes into play. The word Intranet summarises areas like a LAN (Local Area Network), a private WAN (Wide Area Network) to hybrid directory services & searching systems to just about every type of Groupware (most often open or standards based.) This internal Internet, or Intranet, simply defined is the structured use of Internet technologies to conduct the business of an enterprise. Currently, the word Intranet is generally used to define modern networking. Modern networking includes factors that were not considered to be the responsibility of information systems professionals until recently. Modern networking is people centered, realising that the purpose of networks is not only to bring computers together, rather bring people together. Bringing people together requires a lot more than sharing files over a local area network. In the age of the Intranet, words like collaborative computing, workflow, hypertext, document management, versioning and indexing have augmented even sometimes replaced common business functions (i.e. meetings) which are often considered to be overhead for simple problem solving strategies.
WHAT IS AN INTRANET?
The application and use of Internet standards and technology within an organisation is termed Intranet. The Internet itself is difficult to describe. Some refer to it as regulated anarchy, somewhat of an oxymoron, but accurate. The Internet is best described as a non-proprietary standard for connecting information networks, "a network of networks". Large companies, governments, universities and research centres have relied upon such networks for years. A common problem for companies has been, how to connect their network to another and not surrender any corporate propriety or IT advantage? In even more practical terms, how can an employee of one company send e-mail to the employee of another ? By adopting the cross platform and vendor independent standards of the Internet, organisations have a wide variety of vendor equipment and solutions to choose from. Large organisations have many of the same internal difficulties sharing information between departments, divisions, and branch operations.
The World Wide Web explosion is occurring because a critical mass of enabling technologies and market conditions has met a pent-up demand for new way of linking people and information. The key enablers of Web growth are :
The proliferation of PCs, LANs, and modems
Open standards such as TCP/IP, HTTP and HTML
Cross-platform support
Multimedia support and ease of use
Support for secure transactions
These market enablers touched off an explosion of demand for Web services, providing people with a new and better way of linking up with information. Previously, the "information age" had inundated people with data that was out of date, incomplete, or irrelevant. What organisations need instead and what the web provides is a way for people to easily access the information they need, when they need it.
The Intranet/Internet is a demand media protocol. Information is stored in various media formats such as text, hyper-text, Perfect Office, Lotus or Microsoft Office suite formats, audio, video and more. Members of an organisation can access this information worldwide on a 7 x 24 basis. The Intranet is perhaps the greatest technology improvement for organisations since the direct dial telephone.
The Intranet is primarily a communications environment. Not so much in terms of cables, switches and software but human communications. It took the advent of the Internet and its related technologies to really begin to demonstrate in a global way the power of digital informationtext, images and soundto transform the workplace. Individuals and organisations use Internet technologies to communicate primarily in three ways: one-to-many, one-to-one, and many-to-many.
One-to-Many
The most obvious use of the one-to-many model is electronic document publishing. Nearly all information published on an intranet/internet is in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) format. A HTML file, is simply an ASCII file with formatting information, links to other HTML pages, pointers to GIF or JPEG graphics files (to display with the text), Java appelets and other file formats that are more specific to the web browser's capabilities. These documents are not limited to text, and may include images, sounds, links to other documents or Intranet or Internet sites. Information owners may publish this information so that it is easily accessible by all, or a defined subset of users within the enterprise. The documents can also be positioned in such a manner to allow access by users of the global Internet.
One-to-One
One-to-one communication may primarily be thought of in terms of electronic mail. Electronic mail is arguably the most immediately useful and accessible technologies within the Internet suite. Traditionally single purpose personal computer electronic mail clients have been used to create and send electronic messages. The integration of the SMTP protocol into the browser technologies has enabled individuals, institutions and enterprises to communicate directly from a Web page. Newer browser technologies are beginning to affirmative E-mail management capabilities. More and more, one-to-one communication via electronic mail includes the transmission of digital objects such as documents and drawings. As the technology matures electronic mail will become more imbedded into the Web server and browser as Intranet and Internet Web pages will become more `E-mail' aware.
Many-to-Many
Many-to-many communications may be thought of as a public forum. These may be manifested as a newsgroup, a bulletin board or a simple public folder. The input mechanism may be E-mail or the native filing system of the desktop device.
As more corporate information finds its way into these communication techniques, indexing and searching schemes become more important. There are several standards-based mechanisms emerging for these tools and their importance will increase.
THE PROTOCOLS WHICH MAKE AN INTRANET
The fundamental Internet protocols that led to the success of the Internet are 1) TCP/IP, the set of open networking protocols; 2) HTML, the standard document markup language that defines how text, images and sound are presented to a user; 3) HTTP, the hypertext transport protocol created to deliver HTML documents via the Internet; and 4) SMTP, the protocol that enabled basic text based electronic messaging between users. Supporting standards such as Telnet, FTP, CGI, Java and WinSock remain important.
TCP/IP :TCP/IP ( Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) and its related networking protocols are the fundamental technology that has enabled the growth of the global Internet and the current move toward corporate
Intranets. TCP/IP has become dominant because it allows any device to communicate with any other device, regardless of its manufacturer or architecture. It offers a robust set of management tools and continues to have an active development community to insure its viability. As other technologies such as ATM emerge to support the continued exponential growth of Internet devices, it will continue to be the common language of both the Internet and the Intranet.
HTTP/HTML : Just as a technology like TCP/IP was needed to allow disparate devices to communicate at a lower network level, a common end user environment was needed to allow information from diverse sources to be delivered to the user in simple way. This was achieved through the creation of the HTTP (Hypertext Transport Protocol), which defined in an open manner how information would be `served' to end devices. Emerging from work done at CERN and the University of Illinois, Mosaic was the first end user browser of this `World Wide Web' of information. This browser or `client' application runs on multiple hardware and operating system platforms and provides a common interface to the data that is published on the Internet. HTTP and the document definition language HTML provide for delivery of text, images, sound, software in a standard way. It is this combination of the client and server software that has proven so successful in the global Internet arena, and which continues to prove useful in the Intranet scenario.
SMTP : Growing out of the same standard body as TCP/IP and the other fundamental Internet technologies, SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) has become the de factor standard for standards based electronic messaging. Arguably the most useful and fundamental tool of the digital age, electronic mail quickly transforms the business processes of any enterprise. Originally designed for simple text messages only, SMTP is still emerging. Most implementations still lack the ability to transmit 8 bit binary objects and there are only the beginnings of an open directory services environment. It appears the industry will be utilising another generation of proprietary based enterprise electronic mail (this will probably be the last one) as SMTP matures into a robust, enterprise oriented technology. It will be this tight browser integration and sheer industry momentum that ultimately insures that SMTP becomes the common language for the one-to-one transmission of digital objects.
THE APPLICATIONS OF INTRANET TECHNOLOGY
When discussing Intranets, it is important to remember that the underlying technology is identical to that of the Internet. Only in application are the two different, private vs. public. What is implemented on one can be implemented on the other. The client software applications, Web browser, FTP, Gopher, E-mail, WAIS, etc. have been consolidated from a dozen or more down to as few as one or two. Organisations can leverage the volume market power of the global Internet for reduced costs.
Illustrated here are a handful of typical Intranet applications :
The first level of implementation and is moving common printed and workgroup specific material to an Intranet Web Server. Nearly anything printed could be published electronically. It may be a handbook, phone/email directory, open job postings, company/departmental newsletter or marketing collaterals. The benefits for electronic publishing are clear. Publishing lead time is reduced to near zero and no shipping or printing costs are incurred. The information is more timely and can be revised more frequently. Electronic publishing allows all organisations constituents to read a common document on a worldwide basis. Excellent tools exist for creating dual published documents, both electronic and printed.
The second level of implementation is dynamic content generation, simple client/server and fill-in forms applications, and integration of the e-mail server. In this level an organisation's Intranet and network infrastructure has been tested, consensus has built, and development activities expanded to include the upload of information and data. The examples include : forms for travel request, expense reports, conference room reservation request form, dynamic or "on the fly" content creation, proof of concept implementation using a web browser as a client for client server applications, the appropriate replacement of other paper forms, automatic posting of project status reports, automatic posting of team member status reports.
The third level is adaptation of the Intranet as a workflow and team collaboration tool. Other activities typically include using the Web browser as a universal database reporting, data entry, and query interface tool.
In the fourth level, content management becomes critical. Also, cost savings and increased productivity are demonstrated. More ambitious connections are made to legacy systems. There are no set answers for solving the content management problem, but solutions are available. Products for assisting with site and involved how varied the content creation sources are. The answers are both technological and administrative. It is important to note that during levels three and four, the business justification is fulfilled. Typically a Web browser used as a universal interface to external Internet and internal Intranet information, vastly reduces costs both for training and on a per seat basis.
THE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS USING THE INTRANETS AND THE INTERNET
The Internet represents the dawn of a new era of global communications and the standardisation of wide-area public networks. It is a technological revolution at least as important as the popularisation of the personal computer. The excitement around the Internet has led companies to evaluate how to benefit from intranets-Internet technology applied within their organisations.
Companies are interested in intranets to simplify internal information management and improve internal communication by leveraging simple but potent paradigms like hyperlinking. Integrate personal productivity applications such as word processing, financial spreadsheets, presentation applications, electronic scheduling and calendaring and electronic mail applications with information retrieval systems. Enable richer collaboration among employees by providing broad access to timely information with easy analysis tools. Streamline business processes and management tasks with the deployment of line of business applications integrated with existing production systems.
The end user expectations of an internet are that it be easy to use, fast and reliable. As with other production systems, MIS needs an intranet to be secure, cost effective, and manageable. Like the Internet, and intranets were initially designed with information distribution in mind, but numerous cost-saving opportunities have arisen.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET
In the late 1960s, the U.S. government created a communications network used primarily by research institutions until the mid-1980s when it expanded and took on the name "Internet". This global web of computer networks communicates through the standards-based IP (Internet Protocol) which allows computer attached to the Internet to talk to any other using the IP.
The term "Internet technologies" as used in this paper refers to the collective set of technologies including both new Internet protocols like the HTTP and existing network protocols like TCP/IP; the popular authoring language for the Web, HTML, and Web development tools such as CGI (Common Gateway Interface) and Java. An internet browser's Web Server (HTTP server) connects to a business application or database through an API (Application Programming Interface) such as CGI; NSAPI (Netscape API); or ISAPI (Internet Server API, Microsoft's ActiveX API).
How intranets can benefit your enterprise; the dynamic sites and cost-saving technologies that lie ahead :
The Internet
In the near future, Web publishing will be the mainstay of enterprise use of the Internet. Over time, we'll surely see more exploitation of electronic shopping, EDI, and financial trading on the Web. Faster connections and cheaper, better hardware will enable enterprises to offer more graphical and dynamic Web sites. In the interim, technologies are being developed that make more efficient use of the existing bandwidth.
The Intranets
The term intranet has been used to refer to Internet technology working over a private corporate network. But companies are finding two key areas of opportunity that are missed in this restricted view:
New business solutions need to integrate with existing production systems expanding the view beyond just Internet technologies. While security and bandwidth limitations exist for the broader consumer marketplace, extensions to the Internet are making it possible for businesses to conduct secure, high bandwidth transactions over the public Internet infrastructure. These connections can be used to integrate workflows and production systems of different companies. This expands the view past the boundaries of the private corporate network. Intranets can successfully be woven into the very fibre of how people do business. These technologies can bridge the communication gaps between departments and between people as they go about their normal business duties.
Intranets can be used to support a broad range of business solutions. Drawing from the usage of the Internet's World Wide Web, intranets can be used to publish information to employees within a company. The end user can receive this information in a static form or in a way that allows further ad hoc analysis of data to take. Decision support tasks involve using information instead of just reading it. Intranets can also be used to link employees together to enable easy collaboration or workflow.
Additionally, intranets can be used to make interactive business applications broadly accessible to a company's users wherever they are located. This includes not only automating business processes within a company, but these applications can tie together business processes between companies. An example of this would be linking suppliers with a manufacturing company's inventory system. This intra company communication can take place combining intranets and internet.
Typical intranet uses include :
Publishing static information such as corporate procedures, customer and product information, organisational structure, and job listings. Publishing information which supports ad hoc analysis including corporate financials, templates, real time inventory and sales data. Workgroup collaboration and workflow including budgeting, bulletin boards, engineering design and manufacturing, expense reporting, group scheduling, and marketing planning. Interactive business processes such as customer support, direct links between business partner systems, electronic commence (e.g. company store), help desk services and order tracking.
INTRANETWARENOVELL'S COMPREHENSIVE PLATFORM
Business computing and networks are synonymous today. In the decade that Novell has been providing its industry-leading networking products, users have come to take the presence of networks for granted. They also look to their networks to support a constantly expanding range of services. Today's business networks are assimilating services originally developed for the global Internet, and in the process they are gaining new flexibility in the ways they give people access to computing resources and information anytime, anywhere. We call today's business networks, intranets.
Eight key services define the full-service intranet: file, print, directory, security, messaging, Web publishing, wide-area connectivity and management. Novell brings these services together through IntranetWareTM, an intranet-ready platform including Web, FTP and Internet access services that builds upon the foundation of NetWare 4TM with its superior file and print, security, management and directory services. Novell's Group WiseTM adds superior messaging, and more sophisticated management tools are available in ManageWiseTM.
Upgrading current NetWareR servers to IntranetWare allows organizations to preserve their investments in training and network infrastructure while gaining the benefits of a full-service intranet. IntranetWare provides a robust foundation for extending Internet services to geographically dispersed locations.
CREATING AN INTRANET/INTERNET PLATFORM WITH INTRANETWARE
IntranetWare includes a high-performance Web server so you can publish information on a private corporate intranet Web site or on the Internet's World Wide Web. It also provides all the software you need to give your users access to Web information. You can install Novell's best selling TCP/IP on your workstations and servers. Or you can give IPXTM _ only workstations access to the Web and other TCP/IP resources using Novell's IPX/IP gateway, which is part of InternetWare. Multiprotocol routing functions, also included, let you set up a WAN connection to your Internet service provider using leased lines, ISDN or frame relay eliminating the need for an external router.
IntraNet Equality
Complementing its Web publishing and FTP tools, IntranetWare provides two options for connecting your users to the TCP/IP resources of the private corporate intranet and the global internet.
You can choose to deploy IP to some or all of the workstations on your intranet. Novell is the leading provider of TCP/IP to the desktop, through its LAN Workplace and LAN Workgroup products. IntranetWare enhances Novell's TCP/IP capabilities. Dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) is now provided, making it easier to manage IP addresses on the network/and DNS (domain name system) services are included to simplify users' access to intranet information sites.
If you prefer to avoid the administrative overhead of configuring TCP/IP on every workstation, you can give your Windows 3.x and Windows 95 users transparent access to the Web and other TCP/IP services on your corporate intranet or the Internet using the Novell IPX/IP gateway in IntranetWare.
Standard IPX users connecting through the gateway can simply use their Web browsers and other WinSock 1.1 - complaint TCP programs as if TCP/IP were configured on their desktops. The gateway owns the only IP address and handles protocol translations, providing users transparent access to Web pages and other TCP/IP services.
Organizations that IPX networks and connect to the Internet through IntranetWare's gateway gain an added level of securityessentially, a natural firewall. Because there is only one IP address on the network, at the server, the IPX servers and workstations on the network are simply invisible to potential intruders. IntranetWare gives "equal access" to resources on private intranets and the public Internet. It doesn't matter whether users have IPX or IP workstations.
The InterNet Connection
InternetWare provides concurrent routing of TC/IP and IPX over a wide selection of LAN media. Additionally, IntranetWare allows you to connect intranet to a wide-area corporate intranet or the global Internet over leased lines, ISDN, frame relay and ATM. In addition to providing WAN connections to Internet services, IntranetWare allows
you to use the Internet to connect geographically dispersed IPX LANs.
Using a feature called IP relay, IntranetWare's routing software also lets you tunnel connections to your IPX-based intranets over the Internet. This allows you to build a virtual private network using the Internet without having to make any changes to the desktop computers in your office.
The Web Publishing Advantage
The lure of intranet technologies is that they give users an exciting new way to share up-to-date information, using their Web browsers, no matter what kind of workstations they have. IntranetWare lets you transform your existing network infrastructure into an intranet-ready solutions platform.
IntranetWare includes NetWare Web ServerTM, the industry's best-performing Web server software. Using the Web server, you can publish static information as HTML documents. Or you can take advantage of the Web server's L-CGI and R-CGI application programming interfaces (APIs), the included Netbasic interpreter and the Java support in IntranetWare to create dynamic Web-based applications.
Users on your intranet have access to these documents and applications through any standard Web browser. The browser provides a universal client for Windows, Windows 95 and Windows NT PCs, for Macintosh computers and for UNIXR workstations. For Windows users, the market-leading Netscape Navigator browser is included as part of Intranet Ware.
The Web server is tightly integrated with Novell Directory ServicesTM (NDSTM), making it the only Web server that lets you browse a global directory to locate any information or network resource, regardless of where it is on your intranet. One can use his favorite Web Browser to browse the NDS tree, viewing its objects and their attributes by icon or name. When an object icon is clicked for display, Web Server dynamically creates a home page for it, listing its objects and attributes. For user objects, home pages can be created with HTML authoring tools and associated with the object. A graphics file can be associated with the user home page which gets displayed above the home page of the user objects.
IntranetWare also includes the software you need to set up an FTP server for TCP/IP file transfers on your intranet or across the Internet.
NDS and Unmatched Security
NDS (Novell Directory Services), at the heart of IntranetWare, gives you seamless access to all authorized network resources. This access, management and control mechanism provides far more than a simple listing of users and resources on the network. It is a key element in making IntranetWare the most secure and manageable platform you can find for your intranet. NDS is the only directory powerful enough to manage all network resourceson a single server or on a worldwide multi-server network, as it follows X.500 standard. Users are connected transparently to resources on the network without having to worry about the underlying complexities of what resource is connected to which server. The Novell Web Server being NDS aware, simplifies network management by letting users access information stored in the NDS tree. For example, user names, E-mail addresses, URLs (Uniform Resource Locator), and listings of computers, print servers, applications, and other resources. Administrators can manage the entire network from almost any network workstationusing NWAdmin and RCONSOLE, which are part of IntranetWare, or the more sophisticated management tools in Novell's Manage-wise or other Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) consoles, available separately.
Rights and restrictions assigned through NDS-based management tools contribute to IntranetWare's unsurpassed securitysecurity designed from the ground up to make the NetWare4 foundation of IntranetWare a C2 trusted network. Which means the entire network systemclients, servers and the media betweenis a secure computing environment.
Other important elements are a highly secure password encryption standard with a two-part key, packet signing of all data travelling across the LAN, and sophisticated auditing features that allow administrators and independent auditors to monitor security policies and security-related events on the network. WAN connections benefit from packet filtering provided in the routing elements. These can be combined with the firewall and access control elements of the IPX/IP gateway to provide security for internet connections.
Enhanced File and Print Services
In IntranetWare, Novell's industry-leading file and print services allow you to store more data in less space by automatically compressing files and using the block sub-allocation in IntranetWare-features that can cut your disk requirements in half and you can automatically move seldom-used data to less expensive storage devices. That can provide significant relief for your hardware budget.
The automatic file-by-file compression in IntranetWare is performed as a background task, with no effect on server performance. Administrators choose which files, directories or volumes to compress.
IntrnetWare provides enhanced print services that enable users to locate and use printers anywhere on the network through the NDS directory. Each print server enables users to share as many as 256 printers and multiple print servers can be supported on the network.
The Future of Intranet Applications
Web-based internal applications are possible today and are quickly evolving to become an important part of many leading companies' IS solutions. A competitive and open software and hardware marketplace is driving companies like Netscape and Novell, to make improvements in the technology to enhance the range of what it can do and how easily web applications can be managed and deployed. As the Internet continues to mature into the mainstream platform for computing, internal web sites (as well as external ones) are requiring better application development tools, middleware solutions for connecting to legacy systems and system management tools.
Better development tools aim to add sophistication and complexity to types of internal web applications that companies build. Specifically, tools are on the horizon that will enhance HTML authoring, so that users can easily create and publish rich, "live" multimedia documents. Others will help the system managers of the internal web site manage links, expiration dates and ownership: these site and document management tools will become increasingly critical as web sites grow. Even now, some companies have more than 250,000 documents on their internal web. Improved application development tools will make it easier to build applications on top of web platforms that conduct complex transactions against databases, legacy systems and other corporate information sources.
In future as additional technology unfolds, Intranets will be used as organisational data and telecommunications systems. One can expect to see integration of live and recorded audio and video presentations on demand. Increasingly powerful management tools will also enable an enterprise to support far-reaching and innovative systems without sacrificing control. Improved security and administration tools will ensure that users are authorised to access the information they seek. Information management tools will also provide integrated search technology to effectively search across distributed servers.
THE CONCLUSION
The web-based products provided by Netscape Communications, Novell Inc. and Microsoft Corporation as well as other leading vendors are today being used to improve the way companies link people and information both on the external, vastly popular World Wide Web as well as within private company-wide webs. Today's growth of these products are driven by the open environment and powerful capabilities they bring to solving the daily business problems faced by companies in increasingly competitive environments. These powerful technologies are being adopted by leading companies because they deliver an unprecedented and powerful combination of openness and security, intuitive access to highly graphical information and flexibility for customisation.