Slowly but surely, the security industry is becoming comfortable with managed services and the benefits they provide. If you’ve yet to experiment with cloud solutions, managed access control may be a good place to start, with 2021 SDM Industry Forecast respondents rating it as the most popular managed service (64 percent currently offer managed access, while 43 percent said they are planning to offer the service in the next 12 months).
Managed access is fundamentally different from traditional access control in that there is no on-premise software, says Tim Brooks, vice president of sales and vendor management at PSA Security Network, Westminster, Colo. “The database and user interface are both in the cloud, and the user interface is typically managed via a web browser. Also, rather than an upfront cost for the proprietary software pieces and an annual support agreement for traditional access, managed access is built around a monthly fee to have access to the cloud platform. And, the cloud platform is updated on a regular basis as part of that monthly fee.”