Page 146 -

C
C h a p t e r 6 : h a p t e r 6 : G G o i n g P a p e r l e s s o i n g P a p e r l e s s 117 117

Parts
You’ll need the following four components for your intranet, as illustrated in Figure 6-3:
• Local area network (LAN) Your clients need this infrastructure to access the intranet.
You can simply use the LAN you’ve already got in place. If your organization doesn’t
have a LAN, you can probably chisel company news into a rock and leave it for people
to read as they hang their animal skin coats up in the morning.
• Web server An intranet is simply an internal website. To run the website, you
need a web server. Chances are, if your organization already has a web presence,
you have a web server. But it’s more likely that your web server is hosted by your
Internet service provider (ISP). No matter. If your website is hosted locally, you can
add your intranet pages to it. Otherwise, you’ll have to hook up your own web
server. The two most popular are Apache and Microsoft Internet Information Server
(IIS). Table 6-2 compares the two.

NOTE If you don’t have a web server, this can be corrected by virtualizing it on another server. Or,
if you’re replacing old servers, you might want to repurpose one or more of them.

You can outsource your web hosting. This option is less costly and a lot easier. Often,
providers supply easy-to-use security and other tools and templates so you can set
up a secure intranet quickly. PART III
• Web browsers on client PCs Your clients need a way to read the contents of your
intranet, and this is done simply through a web browser, such as Internet Explorer
or Firefox. Chances are that you’ve already got at least one of these installed on your
desktops and laptops, so you’re ready to go.

PCs with browser
software

Switch

LAN

Web server

FIGURE 6-3 The components of your intranet are probably already in your organization.