Directorate of distance education

Presentation of the Different Concepts
Implementing an e-Business project necessarily involves the 
deployment of an enterprise network through which enterprise-specific 
services are accessible in client-server mode, generally via a web interface 
which can be queried by using a simple navigator. Nonetheless, the 
implementation of computer tools is not sufficient. It is therefore believed 
that an enterprise only actually implements an e-Business project as soon 
as it implements a new organization based on new technologies. The 

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concept of e-Business is nonetheless very flexible and covers all possible 
uses of information and communication technologies (ICT) for any and 
all of the following activities:
➢ Making the relationships between the enterprise and its clients and 
different partners (suppliers, authorities, etc.) more efficient
➢ Developing new business opportunities
➢ Facilitating the internal flow of information
➢ Controlling the different processes of the enterprise (production, 
warehousing, purchasing, sales, human resources, etc.)
The goal is therefore to create privileged communication channels 
between the enterprise and its environment and link them with its internal 
processes to better control internal and external costs In reality, Back 
Office and Front office are not entirely separate since the teams in charge 
of the customer relationship must know a minimum of information 
regarding the process of producing the product or providing the service 
of the company. In turn, the sectors that are dedicated to product design 
must be kept informed of problems that are encountered by the users or, in 
turn, their needs, in order to re enter a circle of continuous improvement.
Intranet & Extranet
An intranet is a set of Internet services (for example a web server) 
inside a local network, i.e. only accessible from workstations of a local 
network, or rather a set of well-defined networks that are invisible (or 
inaccessible) from the outside. It involves the use of Internet client-server 
standards (using TCP/IP) protocols such as, for example, the use of Web 
browsers (HTTP protocol-based client) and Web servers (HTTP protocol), 
to create an information system inside of an organization or enterprise.
An intranet is generally based on a three-tier architecture, comprising:
➢ Clients (generally Web browsers);
➢ One or several application servers (middleware): a web server 
which makes it possible to interpret CGI, PHP, ASP or other scripts 
and translate them into SQL queries to query a database;
➢ A database server.

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In this manner, the client machines handle the graphical interface 
while the different servers handle the data. The network makes it possible 
to exchange queries and the responses between clients and servers. An 
intranet naturally has several clients (the computers of the local network) 
and may also comprise several servers. A large enterprise may, for exam-
ple, have a web server for each service to provide an Intranet comprising 
a federator web server linking the different servers that are managed for 
each service.