In this blog we want to discuss the Internet, Intranets, and Extranets.

Internet

The Internet is a worldwide publically accessible infrastructure of cables, routers, switches, and servers.
One thing to keep in mind about the Internet is that the Internet is not the Worldwide Web. Many people will use Internet and Worldwide Web interchangeably, but in reality they are not the same thing. The Worldwide Web is just a service that runs on top of the Internet.

As just alluded to, you can run a wide variety of services on the Internet. Some examples of services you can run on the Internet are :

Worldwide Web
Email
FTP, or File Transfer Protocol
VoIP, or Voice over IP
Streaming video
Online gaming

And many other services to numerous to list here.

Intranet

The Intranet on the other hand is a privately accessible infrastructure of cables, routers, switches, and servers.
Generally Intranets are limited to a single company, organization, or group of companies.
It can also carry a wide variety of services, just like the Internet. In fact, any service you can run on the Internet you can run on an Intranet.

Extranet

Finally we have Extranets. Extranets, like Intranets, are privately accessible infrastructures of cables, routers, switches, and servers.
It is also generally owned by one company, or organization, or a group of companies.
However, the difference between an Extranet and an Intranet is that the owner of the Extranet will allow others access to the Extranet for a fee for specific purposes.
Also, like the Internet and the Intranet, you can run a wide variety of services on it.
In fact, any service you can run on the Internet you can also run on an Extranet, just like is the case with the Intranet. Some examples of Extranets you may have heard about are Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS networks.

Resources :

Lynda.com
Google.com

Extranet

Posts

Internet Vs. Intranets Vs. Extranets