what is intranet

what is intranet?
An intranet is a private computer network within an organization, which is used in contrast to internet, a network between organizations. An intranet is an inner protected business environment and uses network technologies as a tool to facilitate communication between people or workgroups to improve the data sharing capability. It usually supports human resources, sales department, accounting department, and information system

An intranet can be considered as an internal, secured business environment, which uses Ethernet, WiFi, SMTP, FTP, TCP/IP, Web browsers, and Web servers. Employees can access the internet within their organization, but it is firewalled so that the people outside the organization cannot get into this internal system.

It can also be understood that the intranet operates on a LAN, local area network. If the LAN provides the Internet access, the intranet should sit behind a firewall with no gateway to or from the Internet. You should know that if a gateway exists, it is not an intranet, but an extranet.

The intranet may provide a gateway to the Internet, but it should be with the help of a firewall which protects the intranet from unauthorized external access. This gateway should implement user authentication, encryption of messages, and VPN, virtual private network, connectivity for off-site employees to access company's information.