N-GEN Communications Web-based Seminars ©NGCS

Seminar - An Overview of Communications Technologies

Module 6 - Internet, Intranet, Extranet, e-Commerce and Web Services                                        Slide 1 of 70 _________________                                                                                  __________

Objectives:

This module provides an introduction to the Internet network, the Internet network technologies, the Internet network services, the World Wide Web (WWW) service and its’ components, use of the Internet technologies to set-up enterprises networks, e-Commerce, and the Web services. The Internet network is the most sophisticated global network connecting millions of hosts and thousands of businesses. People from all over the globe can communicate with each other, obtain information and send messages. Internet technology has improved communications and business processes within the enterprises and with their business partners.

The Internet has about 200 million hosts (www.isc.org) and is growing at the rate of 50% annually. The traffic continues to keep pace with the growth. The Internet infrastructure uses optical facilities capable of supporting a transmission rate of Giga bps using SONET and DWDM technologies. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) support the customer at M bps transmission rate. The common Internet services include information retrieval, information search, communications (e-mail, telephone service), multimedia information (WWW, video conferencing), recreational services (online games), and on-line business (e-Commerce). Many businesses have benefited by selling commodity products, like computer systems, online and in the process have eliminated the middleman.

The Intranet, an organization’s private network, uses Internet technology and equipment to connect one or more of its web servers, routers, LANs and WANs. Intranets are used to disseminate information and forms throughout the organization such as employees telephone directories, internal job openings, procedure manuals, employee benefit forms, newsletters, expense and requisition forms. An Extranet is an intranet with access provided to select external users. The Intranet and Extranet networks are used to convert enterprises' manual operations into the electronic operations, to connect to their supply chains and to connect their networks to inter-work with their business processes.  It is a new paradigm shift in doing business. All aspects of doing business: technical, marketing, sales, legal and financial are effected.

The current e-Commerce systems provide proprietary solutions. Each solution is based on unique hardware and software. Customized interfaces are required between two proprietary solutions. The Web Services to provide standard e-commerce systems solutions independent of the hardware and software platforms. The Web Services are new to the e-Commerce paradigm promising seamless business operations between enterprises, new applications opportunities and cutting web-site development costs. Case studies of the application of this technology have been included in the module to reinforce the value of Internet technology.

The objective of this module is to cover:

1.0   Internet network

2.0   Internet network architecture

3.0   Internet network technologies

4.0   Canadian Internet network

5.0   Canadian and the U.S. Network Access Points (NAPs)

6.0   Intranet and Extranet networks

7.0   What is e-Commerce?

8.0   e-Commerce components

9.0   The Web Services

10.0  Future of the Internet technology, applications and services

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