Information Repositories

Providing a central store of corporate data, which can be accessed over the network from any location, at anytime.

Information is an increasingly valuable asset. As a result, businesses of all types and sizes are rapidly accumulating more of it--about customers, markets, competitors, and financial trends.

As customers' expectations rise and networks grow more sophisticated, the information is becoming more varied, encompassing text, images, audio, and video. Information repositories provide a way to centralize storage and management of these burgeoning business databases, serving up varied content quickly and expanding easily.

Why is centralization so important? Companies don't need to create and maintain separate bodies of information for their intranets (or internal networks) and their Web sites, for example. An information repository becomes home to a varied and valuable body of business knowledge, accessible from anywhere in the company.

Plugging the repository into the Internet provides additional advantages, with secure, "anywhere, anytime" access for employees, trading partners, and customers.

Implementing Information-Repository Applications

Centralization simplifies management and storage issues, but it creates a need for fast, reliable connectivity for employees reaching across the network to connect with information. A high-speed local network speeds transfers and boosts productivity when a business is relying on central repositories. And high-speed access over wide-area networks or the Internet helps distant or mobile users stay productive.

With technologies such as Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), digital subscriber line (DSL), and cable modems becoming more widespread, connecting the central repositories over the Internet promises to be the wave of the future. Drawing on a single information repository, businesses can create separate and distinct "packages" of content--for employees, trading partners, and customers-- and then provide access to those content packages through varying levels of authorization on their Web sites.