Unified Access: The Long-Awaited Convergence of Physical and Logical Access Control
Consultants Doug Moench and Cathy Hood interview Doug Simmons, director of technical architecture, introducing unified access. This term is used to define physical and logical access controls and their convergence. Simmons addresses issues such as benefits of converged “badges” for facilities access as well as network and application authentication and access control (“unified access”), challenges with implementation, and possible enterprise system upgrades that may be necessary to implement this long awaited technology. In some ways, the federal government is breaking down the barriers of entry thanks to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD12), and enterprises in all industries can soon start to reap the benefits of this integration.
