Suprema is redefining how access control scales by combining edge intelligence with a unified platform that is built for large, distributed environments. Suprema’s edge-based design empowers each reader to operate as an independent controller. This approach eliminates performance delays, improves system responsiveness, and reduces infrastructure costs. Even during network interruptions, doors continue to function securely, ensuring uninterrupted operations.

BioStar X offers centralized identity governance, enforcing consistent access policies and real-time visibility across globally distributed environments. By integrating scalability, resilience, and governance, Suprema delivers more secure and future-proof foundation for large-scale access control.

The recent feature article on asmag.com explores how vendors are rethinking access control architecture. In the excerpts below, we focus on insights from Hanchul Kim, CEO of Suprema, and how they align with this broader industry shift. 

Article Summary
•    As access control expands across global basis, traditional controller-based systems are hitting their limits.
•    Scalability issues now center on performance, identity management, and infrastructure rigidity — not door hardware.
•    Organizations need distributed, flexible architectures that ensure resilience, simplify operations, and unify identity governance across sites.

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Architectural Challenges Outpace Hardware in Large-Scale Access Control Deployments

Published at asmag.com

As access control deployments expand across airports, ports, universities, metro systems, and large enterprise campuses, the industry is confronting a hard truth: systems designed for buildings are being stretched to operate like enterprise IT platforms.

At small and mid-sized sites, traditional access control architectures perform well. Readers connect to controllers, controllers report to servers, and administrators manage identities locally. But when deployments scale into tens of thousands of users and thousands of doors across multiple regions, those assumptions start to break down.

According to vendors and technology advisors interviewed by asmag.com, the failure points at scale are rarely about doors failing to unlock. They are about performance, identity governance, infrastructure rigidity, and architectural decisions that did not anticipate growth.

Performance stress emerges at enterprise scale 
Large deployments may also include 5,000 or more network endpoints distributed across multiple regions, countries, time zones, and languages. Latency, redundancy, and fault tolerance become core design concerns rather than optional enhancements.

Architecture must start with scale, not adapt to it
Inegrators should treat scale as a foundational design input rather than something to be accommodated later. This becomes especially critical in real-world deployments, where access control platforms are rarely standalone. Video management systems, visitor management platforms, HR databases, and third-party analytics tools all add transaction volume and system dependencies.

Identity, not doors, becomes the limiting factor 
As organizations scale, they must manage employees, contractors, vendors, and visitors, each with different access rights, schedules, and compliance requirements. When these processes rely on manual workflows, errors and delays become inevitable. The problem intensifies in multi-site or multinational environments, particularly where different access control brands are deployed across regions due to legacy decisions or local procurement.

Fragmentation increases risk and cost 
Traditional access control systems were often designed for site-level operation. At enterprise scale, this results in fragmented identity data, duplicated workflows, and inconsistent policy enforcement. This fragmentation creates security risk, particularly when access rights are not revoked consistently. From an integrator’s perspective, fragmented identity management increases operational complexity and long-term support costs. It also raises compliance risks, particularly in regulated industries or regions with strict privacy laws.

Infrastructure assumptions start to fail
Beyond performance and identity, Suprema highlights another architectural pressure point:
 
According to Hanchul Kim, CEO of Suprema, traditional centralized architectures become problematic in geographically distributed or operationally complex environments.

“These architectures assume that readers and door hardware can be reliably wired back to centralized controllers and servers” Kim said. “At scale, that assumption becomes a real constraint. Dedicated cabling becomes prohibitively expensive and operationally inflexible, especially as sites evolve over time.” 

Suprema’s experience spans corporate campuses, airports, metro systems, and distributed industrial sites. Across these environments, infrastructure cost and rigidity often limit system scalability.

Moving control closer to the door 
Suprema addressed these challenges early by shifting intelligence from centralized controllers to embedded-controller smart readers.

“In on-premise deployments like BioStar X, readers connect directly to the LAN and are automatically discovered by the server. This reduces reliance on centralized controller panels and simplifies deployment,” Kim said. “With BioStar Air, each reader connects directly to the cloud, Readers no longer need to be on the same network or even the same site.”

This approach enables highly distributed environments, such as retail chains, logistics networks, or transit systems, to be managed as a single logical system.

Throughput and resilience at the edge
Suprema also pointed to throughput limitations inherent in controller-dependent designs.

“In high-traffic environments, dozens of doors may rely on a single controller during peak periods, that creates bottlenecks,” Kim said. “By contrast, smart readers with onboard controllers enable a one-door, one-controller model without additional hardware infrastructure.”

“In both cases, authorization data is securely stored on the reader itself,” Kim said. “Doors continue to operate safely and predictably during network interruptions.”

For large-scale deployments, this local resilience is critical. Network outages or latency should not result in operational disruptions or security gaps.

Governance becomes the real constraint
Despite differences in architectural approach, all three vendors converge on one conclusion: at scale, governance becomes the defining challenge.

“It’s not just about wiring or controllers,” Kim said. “It’s about coordinating access, policy, and visibility across teams, locations, and time zones.”

What integrators should take away
For security systems integrators, large-scale access control projects demand a shift in mindset. Success depends less on selecting reliable readers and more on understanding system architecture, transaction performance, identity governance, infrastructure flexibility, and regulatory compliance.

Integrators must assess how platforms scale, where bottlenecks emerge, and how systems behave under peak load or partial failure. They must also be prepared to guide customers through architectural trade-offs between centralized control and distributed intelligence.

As access control deployments continue to expand in size and geographic reach, the industry’s challenge is no longer opening doors. It is designing systems that can scale, operationally, technically, and organizationally, without breaking.