MokaByte Numero 02 - Novembre 1996
 The California Connection 
INTRANET
di
Marie Alm 
  

 


La nostra collaboratrice dalla California ci invia questo mese un articolo col quale ci introduce nell'affascinante mondo di Intranet

You’ve heard of it. You’ve seen the word blazoned across magazine covers. You wonder what all the hype is about. Intranet is a growing phenomenon not only in the Internet world but also in the corporate world. More and more companies are clamoring to find out what it is, why it is so great, and how do they get one - that is, if they don’t already have one! Well, as we computer folks know or can pretty much figure out, an intranet is very much like the Internet but with some special aspects such as the people who are allowed to use it are limited to some certain group. Perhaps the group is within one company or perhaps the group consists of people in several organizations in various locations around the world. It doesn’t really matter who the users are, it is the same idea and the same principles apply to design, development, deployment, training, and administration. In this article, I’m not going to go over how to set one up or any of the technical details. Rather, I’m going to give just a little discussion about why the intrnet is such a good idea (when it is implemented well), a few points of a more negative aspect, then give some web sites where you can find out more.

An intranet can be used for communication, education, collaboration, sales and marketing, decision making, and just about anything else you can dream up that would be useful in furthering the purpose of the group who uses it. Design should naturally be targeted toward that group. Topics should flow easily and logically from one not-too-long page to another. Navigational aids, such as buttonbars or tools bars, should be readily available and understandable by all. Development will naturally follow an iterative or spiral-like pattern as users see what you have and say, “oh, I’d like it to show this other information too and can you put that button over here instead?” (Beware of requirements creep!)

One of the greatest benefits of an intranet is that the information available there can be disseminated to the entire defined group, who often use a variety of computer architectures, very rapidly. No more waiting for the mail delivery. And no more waiting for that ordered manual to arrive. Another great benefit is that the very latest information can be available to everyone at the same time. An intranet can tie together the first floor with the third floor or can tie Sunnyvale, California to Firenze to Hong Kong. No more outdated manuals giving outdated information. And no more weeks old memos asking for information that must be received two days ago. Still another benefit is that with intranet technology, the various departments or divisions within a company can realistically share the same methodology (for appropriate things they have in common) rather than forging their own way as has usually been the case up until now. That translates to saved money, fewer headaches, and a better product. Administration of an intranet can be easier than for an internet site since, for one reason, the group of users served is more likely to have a common purpose or goal. Security can be more rigorously enforced too.

However, intranets are not without pitfalls. A great danger exists that I have not seen addressed outright - or at best, given a cursory glance. That danger is loss of data. Think about it. Perhaps backup and computer related disaster plans are so common nowadays that we hardly think about them. Even if that is the case, it is worthwhile to repeat that no matter how large or small a company is, that company’s lifeblood is its data. For a company to have a fighting chance at survival in the face of a disaster such as earthquake, tornado, flood, or fire, a comprehensive disaster plan, including frequent offsight storage of the backups, must be in place that takes into account all the information and data that is placed on an intranet - not to mention a means of rebuilding and deploying the intranet in a speedy manner. Even a temporary power outage can have very disruptive effects! If Accounting cannot get to their records, neither the employees nor the creditors can be paid. If Finance can’t get to their records, the company can’t receive any money! If technicians can’t get to their manuals that tell how to construct or repair a vital part, that part can’t be made or fixed. And if software engineers can’t get to their needed documents, development is slowed to a crawl. In all cases, the company is dead in the water and doomed unless the problem can be rectified quickly.

One of the greatest obstacles to overcome when deploying an intranet, is getting the people to use it and to do so on a regular basis. Different companies will have differing rates of acceptance of this new technology. If the user interface is easy to understand and use (for people who know very little or nothing at all about operating a computer) and if the apparent speed of operation (pages retrieved and displayed) is fast, the acceptance and use will be greater. Teaching the users how to Bookmark pages in which they are especially interested will also help with acceptance. Now if we could figure out a way to let the users highlight words and phrases (you know, like the yellow highlighter pens), that would really be great!

A web search for “intranet” using different Search engines returned a huge number of entries:

Some good looking sites:

http://www.intranetjournal.com/ http://www.techweb.com/techweb/products/intranet/ebn18.html http://www.intranetsolutions.co.uk/mugshots.htm http://www.lochnet.com/client/smart/intranet.htm http://www.brill.com/intranet/ijx/ http://www.brill.com/intranet/ijx/msg/513.html
 
 

I looked at a few of these sites - the ones that sounded particularly good from either the title or the short description accompanying the title. For first person accounts and good, solid tips and techniques (quick reading and easy to understand), a great place to start reading is http://www.intranetjournal.com/expert.html. One up from that, at http://www.intranetjournal.com/, you can find beginners intranet info, extensive links, tools to help, news, live chat, and more. Another great site chocked full of good stuff is http://www.techweb.com/techweb/products/intranet/ebn18.html.

Conclusion “The Intranet is your opportunity to define your organization and display it for everyone to see.” A company’s intranet can be used as “an information, communications, and project-management tool across the organization.” (from an upcoming book by Randy J. Hinrichs, and published by SunSoft Press/Prentice Hall. (c)1997 Sun Microsystems, Inc. A more extensive excerpt is available at http://www.intranetjournal.com/newbie.html).
 
Alm Marie lavora come Programmatrice presso una azienda produttrice di software. Ecco una sua breve autopresentazione: 

La mia vita (un po'):I work as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, California, near San Francisco (USA), for a high tech company. Now I use SGI and Sun workstations. Currently, I am helping to design an intranet that will use Netscape and will be written in Java and HTML. The prototype was a big success. Before starting with Java in February, I had been helping to write large applications (like image processing (mostly medical), GUI, and cross-platform timers) in C and Motif under Unix on Sun workstations for about 7 years. Before that, I was a cardiology Intensive Care nurse (for many years) working several places in the world. Some other interests are snow skiing, cats, Tae Kwon Do, reading (science fiction and fantasy), and traveling. I have visited Bella Italia many times and can't wait to visit there again!

Può essere contattata tramite la redazione o direttamente all'indirizzo aalm@bayarea.net
 

 
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