The past couple of recessions have mandated organizations to be more effective with fewer resources. Such requirements have served as key ingredients to fuel a “perfect storm” — where corporate IT’s focus has gone away from just keeping the wheels turning to being more focused on enabling their business to thrive. In the process, owning and operating on-premise infrastructure has become less important than ensuring that the right sets of capabilities, competitive advantages and efficiencies are in place.
Cloud solutions are fine-tuned for this transformation, since they are designed to simplify the deployment, management and higher costs that traditional models incur. It makes sense that their adoption has seen a significant increase, but their rise in popularity was not one that was readily embraced or without conflict. While some IT pros may determine the cloud is not the right fit for them, it is at least fair to concede that it is now commonly accepted as a mainstream option — quite a progression from what once was a small and fiercely debated movement.
Conversely, physical security pros are taking a closer look at the cloud, but it hasn’t quite become a mainstream option. However, the progress in IT provides insight into what is coming. With the appreciation that the physical access community has its own set of unique challenges that must be addressed to make the same transition, the overall path is quite similar, and getting to the other side will offer desirable benefits that cannot be gained within the boundaries of traditional deployment models. Consider the similarities of physical and IT pros:
- Both were/are wary of the cloud concept.
- Both are facing increased budgetary constraints with the same demands on number of projects.
- Both see increased demand for integration (systems, monitoring, interoperability, acquisitions, etc.)
- Both are feeling the pressure to perform with fewer resources, and to consolidate skillsets.
- Systems are increasingly installed in an IT-like environment (servers, databases, and networks).
The differences are just as significant. For starters…..
