Blurring the lines - Internet vs Intranet - Industry Trend or Event

CommunicationsWeek International, Dec 13, 1999 by Ian Scales

Thanks to improved security standards on the Internet and the rapid growth of e-commerce, corporates are rethinking the boundary line between their intranets and the Internet, and providers are coming up with new services to match.

An intranet used to be the IP network you built yourself to exploit some of the dynamics of the Internet without having to put up with nasties like low service quality and potentially disastrous security problems. But now some of the old intra and inter distinctions are beginning to blur.

The Internet--or bits of the Internet--is getting better, while the drivers in electronic commerce mean that corporates' own definitions of public and private are also changing. Links between corporate information and the outside world that five years ago would have been unthinkable on security grounds are now not only thinkable, but are positively being encouraged.

The growth of Internet-based e-mail as a key corporate communications application means that mail gateways to the Internet are almost universal, while the maturation of "firewall" technology can provide an acceptable guard against hackers, making many corporates more comfortable about allowing Web browsing from their users' desktops.

As a result, users are rethinking the old Internet/intranet distinctions, and providers are coming up with services--such as IP VPNs, for instance, which use the Internet backbone--that actually cross the old lines.

One important driver for this change is e-commerce. Where the original intranet was seen as a refocusing of the old enterprise network to enable corporate applications to be developed around "open" Web building blocks--particularly browsers and HTML servers--many corporates are now looking at their own network investments as a way of reaching out, rather than a way of staying private.

In this guise a gateway between private and public networks becomes something that is half open, rather than something that is half shut.

"It's now feasible to deploy Internet services for anything that is not real time or highly interactive," says Brian Catt, U.K. corporate communications director at El Segundo, California-based Infonet Services Corp. "It's an increasingly hybrid situation," he claims.

To exploit e-commerce opportunities--by developing Web sites to actually sell product or services, or by using the Internet as part of a supply chain management solution--corporates are expected to continue a high spending binge on so-called Internet systems integration.

This involves creating "back end" systems that connect the legacy system--say a stock-in-trade database--to the Internet, essentially filtering and safely presenting live, real-time corporate data as browsable pages, without security implications for the back-end system. As a result the old adage that such data should be fiercely defended as a corporate's most important asset is having to be couched in less dogmatic terms.

The end result allows controlled access from a customer via the Internet to initiate a "legacy system" process, such as placing an order for a product or service. In the business-to-consumer market other capabilities, such as real-time credit-card verification, or the need to support Web-to-call center voice services, all add to the complexity.

And it's an area that is expected to grow rapidly. International Data Corp., of Framingham, Massachusetts, for instance, anticipates that the worldwide market for Internet systems integrators aiming to meet corporates' needs will grow by around 750% by 2003.

But pulling this capability together presents problems for existing industry players, which must draw on a diverse range of competencies--from nuts and bolts networking at one end through to "creative" Web-site design and business process engineering at the other.

To get into position players are allying and buying. This year, for instance, Cisco Systems Inc., of San Jose, California, found time in its busy acquisition schedule to take a stake in consultancy KPMG. And in what may prove a significant move, heavy-hitters Lucent Technologies Inc., of Murray Hill, New Jersey, and Sun Microsystems Inc., of Mountain View, California, last week announced an alliance to support "next-generation Internet business applications," essentially by supporting each others' equipment across wireline, wireless and new optical networks.

These moves reveal a fast developing new center of gravity that cuts across the traditional data processing and corporate networking sectors.

On the networking services side, the Internet integration effort may also be helping to blur the differences between what used to be seen as the corporate network and the public Internet beyond.

Corporate resistance is fading, some players say. "We're starting to see customers become a lot less wary about using the Internet," says Glyn Jones, global marketing manager for Cable & Wireless Communications plc, of London, which recently announced a change of strategic direction towards an avowedly Internet and IP focus for its global operations. According to Jones, developments such as e-commerce will inevitably "start to blur the distinction" between Internet-and non-internet-derived services as more connectivity is established between the back-office and the outside world.