Optimal Blue launches new engine with newly designed production sitesMortgagePress.comOptimal Blue, Web, SAS-70, storage area networks, Larry Huff
Optimal Blue, developer of a comprehensive, Web-based platform
that couples decisioning technology with content management for the
mortgage industry, announced the company has launched a new engine
and production sites to provide greater speed and flexibility to
its customers. The engine is hosted in a state-of-the-art, green,
SAS-70 co-location facility. The implementation includes
state-of-the-art storage area networks (SANs) for greater
reliability and flexibility.
Optimal Blue's executives wanted the release of its new engine
to offer increased system flexibility, speed and scalability. The
co-location facility enables Optimal Blue to grow its capacity as
volume dictates, as well as increase throughput, by incrementally
adding more blade servers. Search times have been reduced to two to
three seconds. Capabilities of the interface have been increased to
handle pricing traces for historical pricing and enable users to
customize the way the search results are presented. What used to be
a unified single screen search result has been augmented with views
across multiple tabs depending on how a specific user wants to see
the information, which is something no other provider in this space
has the capability to do. Using the new look, production sites have
become more visually intuitive, have much greater navigation
capabilities and improve efficiencies of information retrieval.
With this functionality, users require fewer clicks to search for
and lock loans, and they get their results faster.
Larry Huff, co-CEO of Optimal Blue, commented, "As our customers
face the current and future market challenges, it's our job to help
stretch our innovation capabilities further to streamline the
workflow process, improve production and ultimately increase
profitability. For Optimal Blue this was an important financial and
technical investment, but its a true differentiator that allows our
platform to operate at a more advanced level than our competitor's.
We see that as a significant competitive advantage for our
customers."
As part of the engine overhaul, Optimal Blue upgraded from
stand-alone servers to a Dell PowerEdge modular blade enclosure
with blade servers connected to a very fast Dell EqualLogic PS
Series iSCSI SAN. This results in a 50 percent improvement in
application response time, as well as significant savings from the
reduction in space used for hardware. Additionally, Optimal Blue
will save a significant amount each month in power, furthering its
efforts to become more environmentally friendly.
For more information, visit www.optimalblue.com.
