Ask Dr. IntraNet
Please step in and lie down, Steve Blass, is in for consultations. He understands the strains felt by people developing and managing intranets. Send your problems to dr.intranet@paranet.com

Q Are companies implementing charge-back policies for intranet use?

A It depends. Some companies charge back for all IT services, including those related to the intranet. Other companies see intranet accounting needs as the reason for instituting IT charge-back processes for client/server resources. In some cases, IT splits costs at the department level based on a head count or some other agreed upon standard of measurement. In other cases, IT tracks server, client and network use and charges for every bit of data downloaded. A lot depends on whether management views IT as a cost or as a service center. One common model is to establish a standard service level for a monthly per-person charge and then augment that with established pricing for requests that fall outside the scope of the agreement.

In such an environment, departmental intranet content producers might provide and maintain server resources after negotiating with IT to get network connectivity.

Tracking intranet spending, expenses and funding can be handled in as many different ways as there are corporate cultures and blends of legacy technology.

Q Is it possible to split a T-3 pipe into three 15M-bit/sec lines and then take one of the smaller chunks and dedicate 10M bit/sec to intranet use and 5M bit/sec to Internet access?

A Yes, you can split a 45M-bit/sec T-3 circuit into a number of smaller virtual pipes and allocate bandwidth for specific uses. However, splitting a T-3, which is 28 64K-bit/sec lines, into exact thirds will take some careful arithmetic.

Whether your equipment will partition the bandwidth just the way you want is another matter. You'll need a chassis that supports the incoming T-3 and allows the bandwidth to be distributed easily among collections of T-1s. One device with the flexibility and capability to support a wide variety of transport interfaces is Adtran's Atlas 800 series.

You have other choices as well. One worth looking into is whether your service provider can provision the lines the way you want. Frame relay or ATM services may be alternatives to leased lines.