Welcome to the July Issue of Glen Cove Computing News. This month's feature article What is an Intranet? will help you develop and implement an Intranet for your business. In this ninth issue of Glen Cove Computing News you'll also find:
"Intranets are the integration of Internet paradigms and standards with a company's existing network, desktop and server infrastructure to create dramatically more effective business management systems." Well that's Microsoft's definition of an Intranet as seen on their Web site. To put it more simply an Intranet is a private network that uses Internet software and standards. Intranets can only be accessed internally and they are not connected to the Internet. There has been a lot of press lately about connecting corporate Intranets to the Internet. In my opinion once an Intranet is connected to the Internet it ceases to be an Intranet.
I was first introduced to Intranets almost three years ago while I was working for a large bank in San Francisco. The first Intranet that I implemented was rather modest in scope. At the time I didn't even know that I was creating an Intranet, the word hadn't been coined at the time. I did know that I worked for a large company that was paranoid about connecting to the Internet and wouldn't allow any Internet access to its employees. Frustrated with my company's inertia I conspired with other like minded employees to create our own internal version of the Web. We each had our own personal home pages with the usual assortment of graphics, text, and internal links. The primary business application we were developing at the time was a company phone list application that one of the programmers had developed in Perl. By creating this internal Internet we hoped to show upper management that there were some viable uses for the emerging Internet technologies. We figured we could sell it to upper management by explaining the savings of publishing the company phone list on the Web, instead of printing out 4000 copies every month. I left the bank before a final decision was reached, but I do know they still don't have a public presence on the Web.
Fast forward three years and Intranets are creating a bigger buzz than the Internet itself. From small projects like ours that were developed to sell upper management on the benefits of the Internet, Intranets have taken on a life of their own. In the past two months I have been interviewed by three computer magazines that were doing articles on Intranets and Intranets have become a large part of my business. Companies have discovered that an Intranet can be an extremely useful tool for disseminating information to their employees. Everything from phone lists to Human Resources information are being posted on Intranet servers. At this point most of you are probably saying well this is all fine and good, but how do I set up my own Intranet?
The first step in creating your own Intranet is to ensure that your clients have a TCP/IP stack. Having a TCP/IP stack will allow your clients to connect to the TCP/IP network that an Intranet runs on. Once you have the TCP/IP stack installed on each of your clients you'll need software to connect to your Web server. To connect to the Web server you'll need to install a Web browser on each client. I prefer to use Netscape 2.x as a Web browser, but there are others available including Microsoft's Internet Explorer. You can also use your Web browser or other ftp software to connect to the ftp services on an Web server. Once you've got your client access installed and configured you'll need a Web server to connect your clients to.
There are a number of Web server packages available today on a variety of platforms. The majority of Internet Web servers usually run on some flavor of UNIX because of its scalability and power. For departmental or small company Intranet Web servers you can usually run on a Windows NT, Novell, UNIX, or Macintosh platform. For most companies the question of which platform to use is dependent upon what your existing platform is. If you're running the majority of your servers and clients on a Macintosh platform you probably want to stick with that platform for your Intranet servers and the same goes for the other platforms. I personally prefer Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIs) running on a Windows NT platform for my Intranet servers. You can see a quick review of the Internet Information Server in this month's Intranet Technology department.
Once you have your clients and servers installed and configured it's time to begin posting the Web pages that contain the information you want to share with your employees. For some tips on creating your Web pages see Volume 1, Issue 7: So You Want Your Own Web Page? This will give you some information on the basics of creating HTML or Web pages. The next step is to encourage your programming staff to learn the programming languages that integrate with Web pages such as Java, Perl, and ActiveX to create applications to run on your Intranet Web servers. One of the most valuable Intranet applications that I developed allowed clients read-only access to a database that tracked trouble tickets that were submitted to their Help Desk. Access to databases through Web browsers is one of the key benefits that can be realized by integrating applications into your Web pages. I've listed below a number of Intranet Resources that are available on the Web. If you're located in the San Francisco Bay Area feel free to contact me at tmartini@glencove.com or (707) 647-2405 for a free consultation and quote on developing an Intranet for your company.
icon.
The Internet Site of the month for July is AudioNet: THE Broadcast Network on the Internet. AudioNet is the largest and most comprehensive audio site on the Internet. In addition to live radio broadcasts, AudioNet offers Web users the ability to listen to a wide variety of live sporting events, concerts, conferences, speeches and special events every week. AudioNet also provides listeners with over 6,000 hours of archived programming, including special programs, audiobooks and one of the largest archives of music and comedy CDs on the Internet, which Web users can access and listen to on demand.
AudioNet's Content includes:
Radio:
AudioNet’s radio "network" includes over 50 of America’s top talk-, sports- and music-oriented radio stations and radio networks, whose programs cover practically every topic imaginable -- entertainment, sports, business, politics, technology, health, and more.
Sports:
Through its network of radio stations and affiliations with colleges and universities around the country, AudioNet delivers the live audio play-by-play of over 60 college and professional sports teams. AudioNet has broadcast more than 1,000 live sporting events over the Internet, highlighted by its Internet broadcast of 15 live events relating to Super Bowl XXX as well the NCAA men’s and women’s Final Four Basketball Tournament, the World Series, the NHL All-Star Game and the Boston Marathon.
Music:
AudioNet’s network of radio stations broadcasts a variety of musical formats live through AudioNet’s Web site to listeners worldwide, giving many the chance to listen to music they’ve never heard before. Formats include country, classic rock, alternative rock, urban contemporary, jazz and easy listening. AudioNet has also archived over 230 CD’s in its CD Jukebox, where users can listen -- on demand -- to either an entire CD or specific cuts. AudioNet also regularly broadcasts live concerts from venues around the country such the Troubadour and Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.
Audiobooks:
AudioNet offers users a growing library of audiobooks for users to access and listen to on demand. Titles cover careers, children, cooking, history, horror, mystery, romance, science fiction, westerns, and more. Listeners can even begin to learn a foreign language on AudioNet.
Cartoon of the Month
The Intranet Technology of the month for July 1996 is Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIs). Yes I know Microsoft is the evil empire and I really do prefer Netscape's products over Microsoft with the exception of the Internet Information Server. This is the easiest solution if you want to implement a low cost Intranet server on a PC platform. A graphical setup installs and runs all services (Web, FTP, Gopher) on an existing Windows NT Server. With IIS you can immediately publish existing files from current servers, turning your file and print network into a corporate Web.
IIS is integrated with Windows NT Server so it will run on several standard hardware platforms including single- and multi-processor servers using Intel 486, Pentium and Pentium PRO, Digital Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC. IIS is also integrated with Windows NT Server's directory services to provide the option of requiring user IDs and passwords to access 'privileged' areas of your Web site. Built-in Secure Sockets Layer support keeps your secure communications private by encrypting the conversation between IIS and all browsers that support SSL, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and others.
I've installed IIs on a number of different Windows NT servers and found it to be the perfect fit for companies who already have PC based networks in place. Again I want to make it clear that I only recommend this product for Intranet use. For Internet servers UNIX is still your best bet for scalability and power. Netscape also has recently released SuiteSpot which is an integrated family of servers that provide Web, mail, news, and other Intranet services. I worked with betas of most of these products and while they're technically equal to IIs and its companion servers, they lack the integration with Windows NT that IIs provides. If you plan to use or are using Windows NT, IIs provides you with all the tools you need to set up an Intranet server. If you want to use another server O/S than I would recommend Netscape's Suite Spot without hesitation.
Home | Services | Portfolio | Products | Testimonials | Archive | Links | ICQ | Contact