Intranet

An intranet is an organisation's private internal network, built on the same technologies as the internet — TCP/IP protocols, browsers and web pages — but accessible only to its employees and authorised resources. Fenced off from the public network by a firewall, it serves internal communication, document exchange and company applications in a secure, controlled environment.

How an intranet works

Technically an intranet behaves like a miniature internet confined to the boundaries of the organisation. Resources are hosted on internal servers, and users reach them through a browser, just as they would ordinary websites. Access is protected by authentication and access control:

• login with company credentials and role-based permissions;
• isolation from the internet through a firewall and network segmentation;
• remote connections over VPN for staff outside the office;
• increasingly a zero trust model verifying every request.

Controlled sharing of part of the intranet with external partners forms what is called an extranet.

Practical applications

Companies use an intranet as a central workspace for teams: they publish procedures, announcements and knowledge bases here, and provide access to HR systems, document workflows and project tools. An intranet organises the flow of information and reduces the chaos of scattered email communication. In environments with distributed teams, internal intranet applications are often hosted on a dedicated server or private cloud, which keeps data and performance under control. Modern intranets increasingly take the form of portals that integrate many systems in one place — after a single sign-on an employee reaches email, calendar, leave requests and project documentation. Security matters greatly here, because an intranet holds an organisation's sensitive data: personal information, contracts, internal procedures and trade secrets. Access is therefore guarded with strong authentication, encrypted connections and strict permission control, and the whole is kept in an isolated, well-monitored network environment.