Extranets: The keys to the corporate kingdom?

Can the Internet be effectively used to generate revenue? It can be, especially with the help of an extranet.

Extranets have become, in the past year or so, a way for corporations to begin opening their intranets to external partners. Intranets, which are built on open, public Internet standards, enable organizations to quickly deploy internal applications without costly and proprietary implementations.

Extranets create an electronic link between a corporation and its partners by opening up new markets, lowering costs and reducing technology churn.

In an extranet, a corporation's employees and business partners use Internet technologies for safe communication, collaboration and commerce.

Extranets enable individuals and groups to collaborate to achieve common business goals. Extranets also allow a corporation to refocus attention from technology toward the elements that make a business run. An extranet utilizes the Internet to provide corporate partners access to critical information. And instead of employees dialing in to a remote access server, they connect to the Internet from anywhere in the world through a secure connection for safe access to corporate data. Rather than using costly and restrictive electronic data interchange formats on value-added networks, companies can set up extranets for an open dialogue between customers and suppliers over the 'Net.

Extranet applications range from simple file sharing to critical business transactions among partners. Suppliers, customers and other partners can also connect through an Internet service provider to gather critical information on extranets.

Net collaboration

Extranets enable secure, ongoing collaboration over the Internet. This means that a parts supplier and the engineer from an automobile manufacturer can design a new product by viewing and editing CAD files at the same time over the Internet. Extranet links between suppliers and buyers can give electronic commerce a big boost by improving supply-chain management. In addition, employees are provided the same reliable access to the corporate network at any time, from any location.

For example, a traveling salesperson could access sales data that is crucial to closing a new deal. Rather than having to fax information to a potential client at a later date, salespeople can have the data at their fingertips, greatly increasing their ability to make a sale.

The business benefits of an extranet are potentially huge. Extranets greatly increase the speed and efficiency with which employees and partners can access each other.

With extranets, customers no longer have to make a phone call for the most up-to-date product availability or pricing information. Rather, they access corporate databases via the Internet to quickly locate the precise information they require.

Business managers can see significant cost savings by building an extranet. Traveling or work-at-home employees access corporate databases, mail servers and file servers via the Internet rather than dialing in to premise-based remote access servers. Remote users access an extranet by dialing in through a local ISP, rather than into a premise-based remote access server.

Traditional remote access systems do not support extranet access. Scaling up these systems is difficult and costly. Expensive hardware upgrades, hefty management costs, and long-distance and toll-free dial-in charges for each user can quickly wipe out a corporate remote access budget. Extranet access requires products specifically designed for this purpose. Opening the enterprise

Building extranets usually takes lots of coordination between the company and its business partners. Opening up enterprise databases can be a tricky proposition. Databases, applications and other important corporate data must be protected via firewalls, data encryption or some combination of the two.

Two elements are key for smooth extranet operations: a complete extranet package, like those from Netscape Communications Corp., Lotus Development Corp. or Bay Networks, Inc. (in the form of its recently purchased New Oak Communications, Inc. extra-net switch) and the right access service provider.

When choosing a service provider, a corporation should select one that will render a high-performance, low-latency network, dial-in port availability and service guarantees. More important than price will be the business practices and technical value of the network.

Pincince is vice president of business development at Bay Networks. He was formerly executive vice president of New Oak Communications, Inc., a provider of extranet products. Bay Networks recently bought New Oak. He can be reached at (978) 266-1011 or tpincince@baynetworks.com.