Computers: Blazing A Trail In Intranet Usage

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

By Caryn Gillooly
Issue date: Sept. 9, 1996

he growing reliance on intranets for business applications is common to nearly every industry segment in the InformationWeek 500. Among the most innovative users of these increasingly important information technology resources are, appropriately enough, computer companies.

"I've seen a definite trend toward the intranet as a pri mary vehicle for internal company communications and information sharing," says Arif Janjua, VP in charge of the high-technology practice at A.T. Kearney, a management consulting group that is a wholly owned subsidiary of EDS.

Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects, a consulting firm in Washington, agrees: "The general trend among all companies is the use of the Internet and specifically the implementation of intranets."

Intranets are internal corporate networks based on TCP/IP that let users with Web browsers access and share information the same way they would if they were on the Internet.

Use of the Internet and intranets is taking IS departments by storm, and most companies are in the midst of pilot or enterprisewide deployment of one or both technologies. Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems are no exceptions. Within the computer industry, analysts say, HP is the furthest along in integrating Internet and intranet technology i nto its own corporate network.

"We describe ourselves as having the largest intranet in the world," says Bob Walker, VP and CIO at HP in Santa Clara, Calif. Walker bases that claim on the amount of traffic the company runs over its network, which consists of more than 90,000 PCs, 23,000 workstations, 4,000 servers, and 800 minicomputers. "We're running about 5 terabytes of data a month across our private network, and the public Internet bulletin board is running about 15 terabytes a month," Walker says.

HP often has been a step ahead of other companies in this sector when it comes to the use of IT. Case in point: HP has no mainframes within its corporate network--the last one left the premises in June.

"We haven't been dependent on mainframe computing for 10 to 15 years," Walker says. "The last one had been running a central U.S. payroll system and an order processing transfer system."

HP is an intranet pioneer. It has had a global TCP/IP network since 1989, and began operating its corporate i ntranet two years later. HP was so far ahead of the curve that it had to put many of the intranet pieces together by itself. "For the Web browser, we had to write the user interface ourselves because there wasn't anything commercially available at the time," Walker says.

Sun Microsystems is also a leading-edge intranet implementer. "We have a state-of-the-art network," boasts Bill Raduchel, CIO at the Mountain View, Calif., computer maker. Although Sun's network is smaller than HP's--it has 36,000 nodes spanning 180 locations in 55 countries--it, too, is a global TCP/IP network.

"Our entire network operates as one seamless cloud," Raduchel says. "We try to hide everything from the user. Our only network is the intranet--everything we do is on the intranet."

In The Limelight
As intranet trailblazers, both HP and Sun are prime candidates for close scrutiny by other organizations that are beginning to put their own networks in place. Indeed, analysts say, others are looking to computer co mpanies as examples.

Both HP and Sun are using their intranets to implement cutting-edge applications and to make these applications available to as many people as possible. "The secret of success is not how much you innovate, but how much and how well you enable innovation," says Raduchel.

Sun is using the network to roll out a Web-based human resources system to the whole company. Another application about to be deployed will let employees view payroll data and modify their financial withholdings by changing the information on W4 forms.

Sun also is adding an application that will allow online processing of certain paychecks. "The Web is a quick and easy way to get information out," Raduchel says. "Over the next few years, you'll see us move more of our business applications to the Web."

In addition, Sun is now deploying companywide videoconferencing. "We're still investing heavily to provide video to all desktops," Raduchel says. With that in place, much of the company's field training and o ther educational programs will be conducted over its intranet.

All this focus on implementing a cutting-edge network has caused an interesting twist in Sun's corporate budget. "This fiscal year should be interesting for us," Raduchel says. "For the first time, we'll spend more on our electronic infrastructure than on our physical infrastructure. In other words, we'll spend more on our networks and our systems than on our buildings." For this fiscal year, he says, the company will spend between $2 million and $3 million on its electronic infrastructure--and the spending is not likely to let up.

In the next year, Sun will deploy IMAP4 mail--the Internet mail protocol. Raduchel says this will replace the current non-Web-based mail system. He called the move a "major transition" that will greatly facilitate use of the World Wide Web.

HP also is disseminating information throughout the enterprise via its intranet. "We basically changed the way we distribute information," Walker says. "We put documents on servers, replacing paper distribution and even E-mail distribution." Like Sun, HP started with the HR department, then implemented a similar scheme for its sales force.

HP also is using its global intranet to help its own IT department, including the management of 90,000 desktop PCs. "In a lot of companies, the PC is outside the data center, not under the control of the MIS manager," Walker says. "We developed a scheme to move the administration and control of the PCs to intranet servers." Through the servers, Walker explains, the compa-ny can configure PCs, standardizing client software throughout the organization. That way, "everyone's using the same releases," he says.

With innovation, however, comes ob-stacles. One of the issues HP is grappling with, says Walker, is information management. "We have more than 1 million documents on the network. How do we keep track of all that?" To come up with a solution, Walker says, the IS staff has met with corporate librarians, who provide experience in inf ormation management. "We're good at hooking up pipes, but we have no experience in content and information management," he concedes.

Management of the information on an intranet is critical, Walker says. "If you're putting in an intranet now, you need to make sure the right content is there. Some information will be obsolete one day after you put it on the network; other information will last a few years. Make sure you have someone devoting enough time to managing the information."

Walker finds the lack of user understanding about just how much it costs to use the network frustrating. "Bandwidth in many parts of the world is expensive and hard to come by," he notes. "We would like users to be more bandwidth-sensitive." For example, he says, one worker actually had the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's real-time weather map on his PC as a screen saver.

On the other hand, he says, "We certainly don't want to discourage people from using the network."

While they may be the pioneer s, HP and Sun are by no means the only companies in the computer industry with significant Internet/
intranet implementations. IBM, for example, has a combination of both that serves not only its own internal users but its customer base as well. Digital Equipment has taken a cue from HP and is moving quickly to run many corporate computing systems over an intranet.

Another major IT trend among the computer makers is the implementation of SAP AG's high-end R/3 client-server enterprise management application. "SAP continues to grow as an enterprisewide application," says A.T. Kearney's Janjua. "Last year, people were thinking about it; this year, they're trying to embrace it."

SAP R/3 is a suite of applications covering business processes that include sales, materials management, and distribution. It's designed for companies that want prepackaged, highly integrated client-server applications, and operates under the premise that some businesses need a single suite of products to control and track bus iness operations throughout the enterprise.

SAP Veteran
When it comes to R/3, Digital is a veteran, having implemented the application two years ago.

"We have SAP on top of an Oracle database as our backbone system," says Richard Fishburn, CIO at Digital in Stow, Mass. "With the combination of the powerful Alphas we have running and our optimized global network, we can run SAP any place we want to in the world."

Even computer companies not known for expertise in client-server are changing with the times. Janjua points out that some of the old mainframe manufacturers such as Hitachi and Amdahl are altering their business models to become providers of client-server products. They are adjusting their internal networks to reflect these changes, offering in-ternal users a multitude of new client-server applications on their desktop PCs. When it comes to innovation, however, few can match HP and Sun. Experts say other computer companies implementing "trend" technologies can learn from those companies' experiences.

Companies in other industries can also benefit--even if indirectly--from what the computer makers are doing. After all, if these new technologies are improving computer vendors' businesses, that could shorten the time it takes for their products to get to market.

To view the IW 500 Computers chart in PDF format click here

Comments on this story?

http://www.informationweek.com

CAREER CENTER

Ready to take that job and shove it?
Open | Close