The internet is the world’s most used tool today. Its application cuts across all sectors of the world making it easy to do virtually everything humans need to do. This made the internet to be more popularly known to you than its counterparts, intranet, and extranet.
Although these three concepts mean virtually the same thing, their difference is embedded in their application, scope, and usage. Where the internet works for global applications, Intranet works within the confines of a specified organization while the extranet allows for participation from authorized external users. Practically, I understand that the picture can be very hard for you to paint. So, let’s take a breakdown of each of these concepts as they apply to the world today.
The Internet
The Oxford standard leaned dictionary defines the internet as a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. In simple terms, it is a collection of computers and servers that are connected globally.
The internet contains billions of web pages making it limitless to store and find information, locate entertainment, and do all that you do with your mobile and desktop devices today. All these activities are services offered by the internet. Amongst other services are; social networks, chat, email, banking services, e-commerce, online gaming, etc.
What differentiates the internet from intranet and extranet is that it is globally based, it feeds the world with the same things at the same time.
The Intranet
One great advantage of the intranet is its ultimate ability to help promote company culture. In a technical sense, it is a local or restricted communications network, especially a private network using world wide web software. See it like Slack, workers and board members of a private or public enterprise need to communicate, collaborate on tasks, share information, and have meetings. An intranet is a local network solution that is strictly accessible by people in an organization to share information as well as tech computing resources.
For instance, when a banking customer calls to to log a complaint, the dev team to solve the complaint will need access to the customer’s transaction details, account backend access, etc. The intranet is where this information is stored. While the internet protocol and the word wide web provide the framework for the intranet, the Intranet differs from the internet because only the employees of the given company can access it.
Extranet
Where an intranet is accessible to only the employees of an enterprise, an extranet is open to external third parties such as vendors, suppliers, customers, etc. It is a private network that allows users and subscribers of a product or service to share and access information, and exchange data and applications.
Extranet is a powerful tool for businesses. Larger businesses employ it to meet the voluminous tasks of facilitating the exchange of business information and transactions. Basic tech-enabled activities such as online ordering, internal and external inventory management, electronic order tracking, etc are a few of the applications of an Extranet. When you create an account on amazon, list your products, and make sales, extranet is what made it possible.
To sum it up. Internet, intranet, and extranet all help facilitate global and brand communications. Since not all organizations’ information can be kept on the internet, companies and organizations use intranets to allow employees seamlessly access all that they need to operate, connect and get updates. An extranet is employed to give access to the company's clients, partners, and other outsourcing agencies that work with the organization.
