Post COVID Facility Access Control: On-Premise vs. Cloud/Hosted

The recent and on-going pandemic has changed the way business of all sizes operate on a daily basis.

Mandatory lockdowns have strained many companies ability to manage their facilities efficiently in a remote fashion. Many of these companies had systems installed in a traditional on-premise server/client configuration but effectively operating these through quickly configured VPN or other paths has proven to be difficult. It also exposed the situation of on-site support when the servers or other hardware needed that personal interaction due to upgrades or patches.

Many companies now are exploring the need to consider moving these systems to a cloud-hosted environment. Cloud hosted systems coupled with web interfaces and mobile applications provide a level of remote control needed when offsite work is required. Having the ability to add hardware resources and software updates through a remote session into a secure data center will increase the effective use of a system.

These data centers afford the users of multiple ISP channels as well as hardware, data and communications failover and disaster recovery all within the model of a monthly subscription. Many customers from small independent businesses to large multi-site corporations are starting to migrate many of their internal computing programs to this model like email, ERP, HR and others. Why should security take a back seat to this migration? It should not, and as a security integrator you should start now having this discussion with your customers and when you do, I think you will find they are ready and willing.

Rick Caruthers is the President of Galaxy Control Systems.