Page 70 - DCAP306_DCAP511_E-COMMERCE_AND_E-BUSINESS

Unit 5: Intranet and Extranet for E-Commerce

speed, it is important that the database system organizes the data to minimize the need to move the
data between the disk and main memory. Storage is one of the core technology issues for NII/GII.
Applications and services predicted on the GII/NIIs include voice, video, and data. This increases the
demand for data storage, given that the information content is not only created, processed, and
communicated, but also stored on the NII.
The network storage system is classified into the following categories:
1. The main or central server
2. The local or distributed server
3. The client storage on the workstation
The capacity requirement of the main server is in the range of terabyte depending upon the application.
The local server may require 10-100 GB of storage systems. The local server restores its contents from
the main server via the networks. The issues of network interface components which deals with the
main server in the terabyte range include, transmission of retrieved data over a wide range of
communication protocols to client and local servers, and the requirement of delivering multimedia
content as uninterrupted data stream to the client in order to provide isochronous delivery.

Examine the importance of security in ensuring the development of e-commerce.

5.4 Summary
• The Internet is a wide area network that connects a large amount of people around the world. It
consists of network cables across the world allowing everyone to access it.
• An intranet is a network within an organization, which is similar to the Internet and helps in
communication, sharing information, and supporting business processes.
• Extranet is an extension of an intranet to allow access to customers and users outside the
company. Extranet allows a company to provide services to outside users.
• E-Commerce involves any form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically
rather than by direct physical contact. It includes conducting both internal and external business
over the Internet, intranets, and extranets.
• The intranet services include the mail services, file transfers, Web services, audio services, and
video services.

• The information regarding the movement of goods that are traded needs to be tracked and
identified in order to maximize the benefits of e-commerce. This is achieved by the integration of
EDI and identification/tracking tools.
• The growth of e-commerce depends on the reliability, bandwidth, and security of the Internet.

• The bandwidth issues related to the Internet are managed by networking standards such as
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and TCP/IP suite of protocols for interconnection.
5.5 Keywords

CGI: The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a programming interface that enables a Web browser to
be an interface to information services other than Web sites.
Cryptography: The conversion of data into a secret code for transmission over a public network.
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the predominant markup language for Web pages.

Isochronous: Happening at regular intervals.

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