Genetec urges stronger governance as cloud use grows

Genetec has warned that enterprise physical security strategies need stronger governance as organisations expand their use of cloud systems. At large organisations, hybrid deployments now dominate.

The argument reflects a wider debate in corporate technology over whether cloud adoption should be treated as a wholesale migration or as one part of a broader operating model. In physical security, that question is shaped by the need to keep systems running across large estates, often under strict regulatory and cyber security requirements.

Many large organisations operate across hundreds of sites and manage infrastructure that remains in place for years. In that environment, cloud adoption is often constrained by compliance rules, operational continuity and long-term oversight, rather than by a simple push to move workloads off local systems.

Francis Lachance, Senior Director, Product, Genetec, said enterprise users rarely rely on a single deployment model.

"Enterprise physical security seldom operates within a single deployment model, and cloud strategies must reflect that reality," said Francis Lachance, Senior Director, Product, Genetec. "Organisations run cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments in parallel, and their systems must work seamlessly across all of them. That is how enterprises maintain governance, visibility, and control over environments that are built to operate for years."

Genetec linked that view to findings from its 2026 State of Physical Security Survey, which drew on responses from more than 7,300 participants. Among enterprise respondents, 39% said scalability was a main reason for adopting hybrid-cloud environments, while 38% cited redundancy.

Those figures suggest large organisations are not choosing mixed environments for simplicity alone. The emphasis is on resilience and continuity, especially where downtime can affect site access, surveillance, incident response and other core physical security functions.

Hybrid Reality

The use of hybrid cloud in physical security reflects the practical structure of many large organisations. Corporate estates often include newer facilities alongside older buildings, regional variations in infrastructure, and differing data-handling requirements across business units and jurisdictions.

That can make an all-cloud approach difficult to apply uniformly. Some systems may need to remain on site because of legacy investments, local network limits or legal obligations over where data is stored and processed. Others may benefit from cloud-based management, remote administration or shared oversight across multiple locations.

Genetec argues this mix should be seen as a deliberate design choice rather than a temporary stage on the way to cloud-only systems. Enterprises need flexibility to modernise at different speeds while keeping control over sensitive infrastructure.

"For enterprises, cloud is an operating model that must withstand ongoing operational, regulatory, and threat pressures," said Lachance. "The goal is not to become cloud-only, but to adopt cloud in ways that preserve governance and continuity over time."

Governance Focus

Genetec set out four priorities for enterprise cloud adoption in physical security. The first is to put governance at the centre of decision-making, with cyber security, compliance and accountability designed in from the start rather than added later.

The second is to plan for hybrid environments, since many organisations will continue to run cloud, on-premises and edge systems in parallel for extended periods. The third is to treat cloud as an operating model rather than a final destination, using it to improve visibility and control without forcing a single deployment pattern across the whole estate.

The fourth priority is long-term resilience. Physical security systems often have to keep operating during network interruptions, service outages or shifts in economic conditions. That places emphasis on architectures that can continue functioning locally when needed and degrade in a controlled way if connectivity or central services are disrupted.

The position highlights a distinction between physical security and some other areas of enterprise IT. While email, collaboration and business software can often tolerate standardised cloud migration models, physical security systems are tied directly to buildings, people and assets, making uptime and local autonomy more critical.

For suppliers, that means demand may increasingly centre on how well products work across mixed environments rather than on whether they are presented as cloud-native or on-premises. For buyers, the issue is likely to be less about choosing one model over another and more about managing governance, risk and operational continuity across all of them.

Architectures that support autonomous operation and graceful degradation across cloud, on-premises and edge systems can help organisations maintain continuity, meet regulatory requirements and manage evolving risk without disruption.