Intranet Server for Business

Increase Security for Your Intranet Server

The risk of security breach may arise as more companies add intranet servers to their corporate network. Most of the time, the breaches are caused by company employees and thus external security measure s are of no effect. Thus, it is important for a business to implement intranet servers together with appropriate security policies and procedures to prevent any security breaches and enjoy the highest degree of corporate network use. Below is a number of ways to prevent your intranet servers from security breaches.

1. Keep intranet serves in a locked room to avoid any mishaps. This may seem to be a simple resolution, but many have missed doing so.
2. Adopt faultfinding updates and security patches. Updates for security holes are launched every now and then from the server software provider once they are discovered. So, it is recommended to make use of it as soon as possible.
3. Set up a strong password policy; Define minimum length, variety of characters, and password change intervals. Generally, a password should have at least 8 characters including numbers, letter in uppercase and letters in lowercase. Also, it is recommended to change the passwrod every 90 days.
4. If there is any unnecessary services, make sure to turn it off. For example, turn off FTP or SMTP if the server will be used to serve HTTP page to prevent any security exposures. By limiting the active services used on the intranet server, the potential of any security breaches are reduced due to your control over intended performance.
5. Do random security audits such as intrusion attempts, suspicious-looking users, profile and password identifications, or the process list, just to see if any unnecessary services have been used.
6. Most importantly, govern your intranet servers with a security policies. Having a security policy will not only help prevent any possible security breaches, but will also create a security standard for the use of intranet servers in the company.

What are advantages of intranet for your business?

Here are some reasons for your consideration. Intranet serves as powerful tools for communication within an organization which helps facilitating team work and collaboration and creates corporate culture in a workplace.

Another prominent advantage of intranet is the increase of workforce productivity. With the use of intranet, users will also be able to locate and access information faster and more efficiently, decreasing cost of producing, accessing, and information distributing within an organization.

Most importantly, intranet personalizes your business and makes it outstanding among others while promoting its personality within an organization at the same time.

Setting Up an Intranet

Intranet and typical website are alike in some cases, except one distinctive feature of intranet that gives full protection. While websites allow public access to any one online, only those with password permission are allowed to access intranet. Therefore, company intranet has become a great alternative and definite way to share information among employees, clients, and partners through the use of Internet. 

To build an intranet for your company or home-based office, first of all, you will have to arrange one sole computer to maintain your intranet portal. It is recommended to get a newer model computer so that it is compatible to the current Internet protocols. Also, make sure that the computer has enough of hard disk space to handle high web traffic.

Next, furnish an Internet connection. The most important thing when setting up an intranet is an access to Internet. To gain a fast and convenient service, use a LAN (Local Area Network) and you will be connected in no time.

Then, it's time to select a domain name. Try to think of the one that is easy to remember and easy to be found. Once you got the idea, buy the domain name for a fee online.

When you have prepared the above requirement, you are ready to build a website. Find a web space for your website. Though there are many of online sites that offer web space for a fee, it is wise to choose the one that provide basic bandwidth to support high traffic and offer convenience for the interface.

After that, you will need to find a web server. Before creating a proper intranet design for your business, your web page must be hosted on a web server. If you have no web server in mind yet, Apache is a free web server that is fast and safe.

Last but not least, add the final touch to your intranet by providing a password protection. Instruction to protect your site from outer interruption should be noticed by your web server provider, especially if you plan to place sensitive information on your web page.

Setting Up Intranet Servers Business

When installing a protected and safe intranet servers, it not only requires Web server (hardware and software), networked Pcs, firewall hardware and software, but it is also necessary to have Content Management Software (CMS) and other Application software.

There are two thing consisting to make a Web server: hardware and software. To select a hardware, it is important to know your use of intranet Web server as it depends on size of intranet, amount of contents needed to publish, and number of visitors accessing the intranet.

For instance, it is not necessary to have a powerful device to run your server software if your intranet only contains text data and the Web pages gain about five visitors. However, if you plan to host streaming video on intranet and the page will be accessed by thousands people at once, it is recommended to have a large and dedicated server with proper bandwidth for the job.

The server software will take care of all the requests for hosting files on the server, looks up for the file and transfer it to the right computer. Apache is one of the most popular Web sever software because it is free to download. The other popular one is a well-known Microsoft Internet Information Server.

For implementation and configuration of Web server in a network, firstly, a company need to know how intregal the intranet might be for daily transactions. The more you use intranet for "main business processes," the greater redundancy requires for the system.

Throwing things like Web server, database, applications, and Web page, into the same box is common for organizations where their intranet servers are a low-priority application. On the contrary, if your company relies greatly on Web-based business application of intranet, it is wise to adopt a backup server or a network server cluster to share transactions. In some cases, it is also a good idea to host a database on individual machines. So, when one server goes down, the others can still reach the databases.

Resources: intranet software