An extranet is a private network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organization's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers or other businesses. An extranet can be viewed as part of a company's Intranet that is extended to users outside the company (eg: normally over the Internet). It has also been described as a "state of mind" in which the Internet is perceived as a way to do business with other companies as well as to sell products to customers. The Internet Protocol (IP) is a data-oriented protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork. ... Network cards such as this one can transmit data at high rates over Ethernet cables. ... An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organizations information or operations with its employees. ...

Briefly, an extranet can be understood as "a private internet over the Internet".

An argument has been made that "extranet" is just a buzzword for describing what institutions have been doing for decades, that is, interconnecting to each other to create private networks for sharing information. A buzzword (also known as a fashion word or vogue word) is an idiom, often a neologism, commonly used in managerial, technical, administrative, and sometimes political environments. ...

Another very common use of the term "extranet" is to designate the "private part" of a website, where "registered users" can navigate, enabled by authentication mechanisms on a "login page". This page as shown in the AOL 9. ... Authentication (Greek: αυθεντικός = real or genuine, from authentes = author ) is the act of establishing or confirming something (or someone) as authentic, that is, that claims made by or about the thing are true. ... A login (also log in, log on, signon, sign on) is the process of accessing a computer system by identification of the user in order to obtain credentials to permit access. ...

Security

An extranet requires security and privacy. These can include firewalls, server management, the issuance and use of digital certificates or similar means of user authentication, encryption of messages, and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) that tunnel through the public network. Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Authentication (Greek: αυθεντικός = real or genuine, from authentes = author ) is the act of establishing or confirming something (or someone) as authentic, that is, that claims made by or about the thing are true. ... // In cryptography, encryption is the process of obscuring information to make it unreadable without special knowledge. ... A Virtual Private Network, or VPN, is a private communications network usually used within a company, or by several different companies or organizations, communicating over a public network. ...

Industry uses

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, several industries started to use the term "extranet" to describe central repositories of shared data made accessible via the web only to authorised members of particular work groups. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ...

For example, in the construction industry, project teams could login to and access a 'project extranet' to share drawings and documents, make comments, issue requests for information, etc. In 2003 in the United Kingdom, several of the leading vendors formed the Network of Construction Collaboration Technology Providers, or NCCTP, to promote the technologies and to establish data exchange standards between the different systems. The same type of construction-focused technologies have also been developed in the United States, Australia, Scandinavia, Germany and Belgium, among others. Some applications are offered on a Software as a Service (SaaS) basis by vendors functioning as Application service providers (ASPs). 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Scandinavia is a region in Northern Europe. ... Software as a Service (SaaS) is a model of software delivery where the software company provides maintenance, daily technical operation, and support for the software provided to their client. ... An application service provider (ASP) is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. ...

Specially secured extranets are used to provide virtual data room services to companies in several sectors (including law and accountancy). Data rooms are used in many different types of transaction where the vendor (in the case of a property, M&A or share sale) or the authority (in the case of a PFI/PPP project) wishes to disclose a large amount of confidential data to proposed bidders typically during the...

There are a variety of commercial extranet applications, some of which are for pure file management, and others which include broader collaboration and project management tools. Project management is the discipline of organizing and managing resources in such a way that these resources deliver all the work required to complete a project within defined scope, time, and cost constraints. ...

Advantages

1. Extranets can improve organization productivity by automating processes that were previously done manually (eg: reordering of inventory from suppliers). Automation can also reduce the margin of error of these processes.
2. Extranets allow organization or project information to be viewed at times convenient for business partners, customers, employees, suppliers and other stake-holders. This cuts down on meeting times and is an advantage when doing business with partners in different time zones.
3. Information on an extranet can be updated, edited and changed instantly. All authorised users therefore have immediate access to the most up-to-date information.
4. Extranets can improve relationships with key customers, providing them with accurate and updated information. [1]

Disadvantages

1. Extranets can be expensive to implement and maintain within an organisation (eg: hardware, software, employee training costs) - if hosted internally instead of via an ASP.
2. Security of extranets can be a big concern when dealing with valuable information. System access needs to be carefully controlled to avoid sensitive information falling into the wrong hands.
3. Extranets can reduce personal contact (face-to-face meetings) with customers and business partners. This could cause a lack of connections made between people and a company, which hurts the business when it comes to loyalty of its business partners and customers.[2]

An application service provider (ASP) is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. ...

See also

• Intranet
• Internet
• Web portal
• LAN
• WAN
• List of collaborative software

An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organizations information or operations with its employees. ... A Web portal is a site on the World Wide Web that typically provides personalized capabilities to its visitors, providing a pathway to other content. ... Lan can stand for several things: A local area network Lan (airline) formerly LanChile Lan Peru Län, a kind of administrative division used in Sweden Lan Mandragoran, a fictional character in the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan. ... Wan is a Chinese abbreviation for the province of Anhui in China. ... This is a list of collaborative software (or list of groupware) applications. ...

References

Further reading

• Callaghan, J. (2002), "Inside Intranets & Extranets: Knowledge Management and the Struggle for Power", Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-98743-8

External links

• NCCTP website

Examples of extranet products