Application traffic management is the key to Web services, according to Northwest Multiple Listing Service’s (NWMLS) technology partner, F5 Networks. How that translates for MLSs is better bandwidth, more manageable traffic and more connectivity. The benefit for members? No more problems with slowness.

Jack Johnson, CEO of NWMLS says, “We were experiencing difficulties managing traffic over our bandwidth, and some T-1s were maxing out, when other lines had lots of room. That’s when we learned of Link Controller technology.”

F5 Networks equipped NWMLS with the newest 4.5 version of BIG – IP Link Controller.

"We are (now) able to meet our goal of providing our clients with 'always-on', fast and easy access to information,” says Johnson.

NWMLS is part of a counter trend. While many MLSs struggle to convert hard-to-manage legacy MLS systems to third-party Internet providers, NWMLS has taken management of all their MLS information systems in-house.

“We are considered an industry leader in support to our users,” says Johnson. “We host all our own systems at our data center. It is our philosophy that our network should be available 100 percent of the time. We have multiple Internet connections, and we have three service providers. We have nine total Internet connections to three providers.”

Explains Jason Needham, product manager for F5 Networks, “This is commendable, because ISPs are having connection troubles. When you look at organizations that are delivering critical information, one life line can disconnect your customers. This solution is to have more than one connection to customers. It is called multihoming.

”When a person makes a request to connect to services, Link Controller performs a number of queries to the client’s PC to identify where the request is coming from configured with our connectivity. It determines the best way that client can get into the NWMLS system. When data is being sent back to the client PC, the way client came in may not be the best way to send traffic back to the client, so it can be routed another way. This gives a lot of flexibility.”

Brendan Johnson, project manager and IT supervisor with NWMLS says, “The way it affects the customer is the MLS industry is shifting to Internet-based applications. With that comes a new level of complexity to provide the best customer service. If you are an MLS and you want to provide access to data, you have to put in the technology to handle the load of people to access the data. Availability and up time are important, and as MLSs shift, this will become more critical to them.”

Continues Brendan, “MLSs are more focused today in their role in types of services. We’re more focused on aggregation of the data and delivery to broker Web sites and having good front end access to our database for individual Realtors, to make sure it is fast and available.

”The things we do with our system is we attempt to minimize any points of failure as far as the system is concerned. All aspects of the system has redundancies so if one part goes down, another can take over. We need to monitor systems effectively and proactively manage our systems. They need to be scalable and we need to be in a position where we are continuously investigating new technologies and relationships with vendors. That is more important than it was a few years ago. One aspect is that the vendors become an extension of our work force. In our case, our front end vendor is Rapattoni.”

Brendon explains that NWMLS had been using an ‘industry standard way of managing multiple Internet connections called the BGP border gateway protocol, but that it wasn’t giving the MLS reliability or performance. “It is another way of managing multiple connections using the routers themselves, but it is not as intelligent as Link Controller.”

Needham adds, ”The problem is that when the MLS moves to the Internet for the benefit of Realtors, there is congestion and outages that you can’t recover from. This standard reduces the single points of failure and maintains connection to customers. If an MLS can have outages that last for hours that means that Realtors can’t look up home information, they can’t get to that. By using this product they can connect to the Internet and the services are always available with a fast connection.”

Traffic problems are set to only get worse as more Realtors use the Internet. “The real issues are at the beginning of the curve, and all MLSs will be doing this eventually,” says Needham. “The Realtor doesn’t have to go to the office, and they have a lot more flexibility and advantages using the Internet.”

Link Controller is suitable for any information service provider or MLS which acts as the central storehouse of information.

Published: February 7, 2003

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