intranet - technical definition

A private network based on the TCP/IP protocol suite and designed to provide access to information resources within a company, university, or other organization. Designed to look much like a site on a private World Wide Web (WWW) and based on the same protocols, an intranet supports familiar client/server software such as browsers and e-mail. Intranets can be used for communications to and between employees to advise them of company policies, job postings, company events, product literature, press releases, and so on. On a password-protected basis, privileged users can access sensitive internal company information, including customer billing records and network usage data. Intranets support the transmission of images, video clips, and sound clips, as well as textual information. Hypertext links can be included to hot link to other sites and databases. An intranet can be confined to a campus environment or can extend across the wide area to link together multiple, geographically dispersed locations. Access from an intranet to the wider public Internet is possible through a security firewall. Extranets are intranets opened to select groups of users outside the company. See also browser, database, e-mail, extranet, firewall, hypertext, Internet, protocol, protocol suite, TCP/IP, and WWW.