Access Control has become an increasingly accepted method for providing authentication for users to enter certain area in a building or campus. As the entrances are located at farther distances or in various locations the access controlling devices are required to connect to the network. This can be done either through wireless or through a cable that connects device to the LAN. Second choice is more economical and easy. To do this Serial Device Servers are used. The users are provided with an Identification card, which has either Bar coding, or Smart Card or Contactless capabilities based on the type of reader deployed. Since most of the buildings today have standard LAN cabling done already and are not equipped with separate cabling for Access Control Devices, using the LAN cable for bringing these device for central manageability has become very standard. This also gives the flexibility for a Centralized Access Control not limiting to one Geographical area.

The following illustration shows an Access Control System in a single entrance building. We can control any number of Access Control Terminals by a single PC in the network. Each Terminal should be connect to the LAN using Ethernet Adaptor.

With the present advent of Bio-metric Finger Print reading and online Validation, the need for large data transfer between the Reader and Server where the data is stored for comparison becomes a must. The LAN enabling of reader helps as they can work at 10 or 100 Mbps speed.

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