Intranet portal

An intranet portal is the gateway that unifies access to enterprise information and applications on an intranet. It is a tool that helps a company manage its data, applications, and information more easily through personalized views. Some portal solutions are able to integrate legacy applications, objects from other portals, and handle thousands of user requests. In a corporate enterprise environment, it is also known as an enterprise portal. The Intranet and Internet share many elements and use the same technologies, but they fundamentally differ in their missions. Unlike the Internet, the intranet operates within a private network and is not necessarily connected to the Web. Connectivity transpires within the process called address mapping. Here, Intranet addresses are converted to Internet addresses to provide the required transparency and vice versa. Through the intranet portal, the private network is able to impose its own local rules of behavior because of the installation and maintenance of a mechanism such as a firewall and intranet portal solutions. Internet browsers cannot connect to the server behind it and must contact the gateway machine and abide by the restrictions mandated by the gateway. Only users within an organization can access the network. Users can also access the Internet by abiding by a set of local rules. The scope of the network allows the intranet portal to perform faster with higher throughput than the Internet. Corporate intranets began gaining popularity during the 1990s. As intranets quickly grew more complex, the concept of an intranet portal was born. Today, intranet portals provide value-added capabilities such as managing workflows, increasing collaboration between work groups, and allowing content creators to self publish their information. A typical example of a web platform used to build and host an intranet is Microsoft SharePoint, which is used by 46% of organizations. SharePoint provides features necessary for collaboration, integration, and customization.