Many companies are now offering a cloud-hosted or web-based access control system. With these systems, clients typically pay a monthly fee or per-door cost to the cloud service/hosting provider or third-party provider. These providers offer the benefits of a robust data center to a client without the client incurring the cost of building the infrastructure themselves. With a web-based system, users have access to online real-time management to control access to all facilities remotely via a secure internet connection. The key benefit from these types of hosted systems is convenience for multi-campus organizations, fewer capital expenses, decrease in in-house resources, regular software updates, and likely increased redundancy. Cloud-hosted or web-based ACS is a solution for organizations that may not have enough technical staff and infrastructure to support these systems as well as multi-campus enterprises that find cost-savings in the consolidation of infrastructure while maintaining a desired level of redundancy.
Other trends that our security subject matter experts are seeing include many ACS manufacturers making updates to include credentialing management in their base package and a continued push for biometrics. The use of biometrics has evolved from fingerprint-based devices to so-called “frictionless” systems which include biometric readers that can identify a person when they wave their hand across a device. Also, the advancements of facial recognition as a biometric is becoming practical with improvements in both accuracy and processing speed.