A Practical Guide to Intranet Planning

One problem an intranet planner faces is that it takes too long to research the subject initially, the intranet planner needs to get the big picture not implementation details. This thesis will help the reader quickly grasp intranet concepts, terminology, and major issues, in order to save time in formulating an effective strategy. The thesis defines internet, intranet, and extranet, from physical and organizational viewpoints, and introduces the issues discussed in later chapters. The control issue is shown to be the common theme in debates about centralized versus distributed computing, thin versus fat client, closed versus open access, supplier push versus user pull, and management control versus employee empowerment. There is a discussion of what Web technology does well, how to integrate it with existing technology, Java, and top down versus bottom up intranet development Network architecture and firewalls are discussed, as well as, network security threats and what can be done to counter them.