Staying connected to customers and vendors can take plenty of an organization’s resources — unless technology shortcuts can step in.

Enter the “extranet” – a private network that uses Internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business’s information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses.

An even better ‘Intranet’

Plenty of companies have created “intranets” for their employees to use for sharing info and making data available across an organization.

The “extranet” goes one better. It can be a part of an organization’s intranet that’s extended to folks outside the company and used to:

• exchange large volumes of data using Electronic Data Interchange
• share product catalogs
• collaborate with other companies
• develop and use training programs
• provide or access services, like an online banking app managed by one company for affiliates, and
• share news of common interest.

The caveat: An extranet needs security and privacy. To manage this, you may need:

• firewall server management
• digital certificates or some other kind of of user authentication
• message encryption, and
• virtual private networks (VPNs) that tunnel through the public network.

Need to know more about extranet? Click here for more info.

Tags: data, extranet, intranet, manage, security, sharing