Software - Web Watch - Back to basics

Web Watch - Back to Basics

Back to basics. Do you know your Extranet from your Intranet, your portal from your collaboration tool? Of course you do! So do I! But, just in case.........let's re-cap with some simple, clear and concise explanations on what they are and what they can and cannot do for you and your company.

Firstly, those simple definitions.
An Intranet is a private network that is contained within a single enterprise and built using Internet standards and protocols. The main purpose of an Intranet is to share company information and computing resources among employees and can be used to facilitate group working. In general terms, an Intranet looks like a private version of the Internet.
An Extranet is again a private network that uses Internet protocol and a telecommunications system to securely share part of an enterprise's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers or other visitors. In essence it should provide a shared, collaborative environment, but with different levels of restricted access to the private knowledge base of a business i.e. its Intranet. (Diagram 1)

Therefore, the only difference between an Intranet and an Extranet is the additional participation and interaction of people outside of the business.

For members of the construction supply chain, definitions are further complicated by the emergence of "Project Extranets" and the potential impact on the way the whole industry operates. This causes confusion because such products are not, in the true definition, Extranets. They are collaboration tools, designed to provide users with access only to a subset of the knowledge base concerned with one or several specified projects, as opposed to a whole company database.

Therefore, strictly speaking, Project Extranet software providers fall into the category of Application Service Providers (ASP) because they develop, host and manage the software applications they develop to support a Project Extranet. This means that the software designed by the ASP is stored in and accessed from a remote data centre. The organisation ultimately responsible for the programs and the data is the ASP, not the organizations involved in the project itself. (Diagram 2)

A Web portal is a web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services to the user, such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls or trading facilities.

Similarly, an individual enterprise's Intranet can have a portal through which users are led into different areas of the enterprise's knowledge base.

What does the future hold for this technology within the UK construction supply chain?

Many members of the construction supply chain claim to have an Intranet. But a fully conceived intranet should be much more than just a few static documents and an old phone list. What it should deliver is access to all the information that any employee, partner, supplier or client needs in order to do their job.

This yields benefits such as seamless integration of related yet unconnected information, personalised access and single password sign-on, integrated document management for the entire company, an environment to collaborate online and a general technology framework that binds all existing technology infrastructure together.

Whilst more than 50% of construction industry members recently surveyed claimed to have Intranets, a number closer to 5% had attained the sort of capabilities listed above. However, engineers, designers, architects, main contractors and sub-contractors are now beginning to understand the value to be extracted from a more effective approach to 'managing knowledge,' not least because of the example set by the more high profile online collaboration tools.

Knowledge Management vs. Project Collaboration?

The proliferation of Project Extranets has, however, raised a number of issues that current and future users will need to confront. Although there are benefits to switching away from a traditional model of an internal IT resource to one where everything is delivered from a central remote point (ASP), there are equally areas of concern, substantiated by the apparent limited take-up and therefore still uncertain future for some Project Extranets.

Benefits may include cost savings from renting complex applications over outright purchase, parity between all parties sharing the system (ensured by a third-part ASP), lowest common denominator equipment for using the system (browser + modem) and the cost savings from the collaboration process itself (copying, printing, posting, error/rework reduction.)

Concerns on the other hand may include perceived loss of control, especially related to service reliability and availability from the ASP. Add to that the value, security and privacy of an organisation's intellectual property and most importantly, performance problems of the Internet itself, which is heavily oversubscribed given the current levels of bandwidth available. It will be of no surprise that many organisations are reluctant to even consider the ASP model until the next generation of high-speed communications infrastructure, such as ADSL, finally becomes a reality.

Extranet the Intranet

Some of the larger organisations in the supply chain are considering hosting their own projects. In order to do this they will have most likely already implemented a full corporate Intranet platform that deals with the management of their entire internal knowledge base. They then give partner organisations selective access to parts of that Intranet. While this is generally related to the projects those partners are jointly working on, other relevant areas of the company's knowledge base can also be exposed, such as pieces of financial information, working documents, company procedures, news feeds etc.
To achieve this the extranet server is connected to the Web, allowing it to be accessed over the Internet through a Browser. There are a number of emerging software products available, at relatively low cost to support this approach. (Diagram 3)

While many off the issues concerning data ownership and performance still remain, overall operating costs are reduced due to the wider efficiency gains made from implementing a full Intranet. It is also a big advantage to the host to have the project information available to their users over a fast, secure local area network connection and also be considerably more certain over the future commercial viability of the software they use.

This article could not have been compiled without reference to the White Paper written by Knowledge Management company, Union Square. To have your free copy despatched to you today simply mail information.zone@union2.co.uk

Background To Union Square Software Ltd
Union Square Software Ltd was formed in November of 2000 through the collaboration of four colleagues who had previously been responsible for the development and introduction of the DEMA(r) Accounting and Job Costing System at The Data Base (Nottm) Ltd during the mid 1990's. With a combined experience of more than 60 years in supplying the construction sector with innovative IT solutions, the management team launched Union Workspace(tm) in January 2001 and are now arguably established as the leading supplier of Knowledge Management solutions to the sector.