![MLS Insight: Disaster Recovery Planning at RMLS™]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Jan 30, 2015
MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.
RMLS™ began disaster recovery/business continuance (DR/BC) planning in earnest in 2002. The events of September 11, 2001, brought home the absolute necessity for this kind of planning, as it did for many businesses. Of course, part of running a responsible business has always been planning for emergencies and contingencies, but that process was formalized for RMLS™ starting in 2002.
Our first attempts at documenting the steps for disaster recovery were a little clumsy and hard to maintain. We are now on our third iteration of our DR/BC plan, and have refined it to identify the response needed for various types and levels of events—a snow day or an RMLSweb outage to the loss of our corporate facility due to earthquake or fire.
Everyone at RMLS™ has a role in helping to respond appropriately to situations that threaten the safety of employees and the continuity of the services we provide. Of course, the highest priority in any crisis is care for life and physical safety of anyone present, if that is an issue. After that, attention goes to reducing loss of data and assets. Since our service is critical to our subscribers, our goal is uninterrupted service, so a focus on speedy recovery and communication are key elements of our planning.
Part of that speedy recovery is having a redundant database and servers for RMLSweb. In 2008, we moved our DR/BC servers from a location in Portland to a building in Roseburg, built in partnership with the Douglas County Association of REALTORS®. Data is continually replicated to those servers, and during maintenance mode each month, RMLSweb actually operates from Roseburg while the main Portland servers receive their patches and updates.
Disaster recovery planning is not something that you can do once and forget about. It needs to be part of the business plan and a living, changing process
The next post will focus on listing data accuracy. If you have any questions you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.
Photo: iStockPhoto/Endurodog
![MLS Insight: Disaster Recovery Planning at RMLS™]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Jan 30, 2015
MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.
RMLS™ began disaster recovery/business continuance (DR/BC) planning in earnest in 2002. The events of September 11, 2001, brought home the absolute necessity for this kind of planning, as it did for many businesses. Of course, part of running a responsible business has always been planning for emergencies and contingencies, but that process was formalized for RMLS™ starting in 2002.
Our first attempts at documenting the steps for disaster recovery were a little clumsy and hard to maintain. We are now on our third iteration of our DR/BC plan, and have refined it to identify the response needed for various types and levels of events—a snow day or an RMLSweb outage to the loss of our corporate facility due to earthquake or fire.
Everyone at RMLS™ has a role in helping to respond appropriately to situations that threaten the safety of employees and the continuity of the services we provide. Of course, the highest priority in any crisis is care for life and physical safety of anyone present, if that is an issue. After that, attention goes to reducing loss of data and assets. Since our service is critical to our subscribers, our goal is uninterrupted service, so a focus on speedy recovery and communication are key elements of our planning.
Part of that speedy recovery is having a redundant database and servers for RMLSweb. In 2008, we moved our DR/BC servers from a location in Portland to a building in Roseburg, built in partnership with the Douglas County Association of REALTORS®. Data is continually replicated to those servers, and during maintenance mode each month, RMLSweb actually operates from Roseburg while the main Portland servers receive their patches and updates.
Disaster recovery planning is not something that you can do once and forget about. It needs to be part of the business plan and a living, changing process
The next post will focus on listing data accuracy. If you have any questions you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.
Photo: iStockPhoto/Endurodog
![MLS Insight: Disaster Recovery Planning at RMLS™]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Jan 30, 2015
MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.
RMLS™ began disaster recovery/business continuance (DR/BC) planning in earnest in 2002. The events of September 11, 2001, brought home the absolute necessity for this kind of planning, as it did for many businesses. Of course, part of running a responsible business has always been planning for emergencies and contingencies, but that process was formalized for RMLS™ starting in 2002.
Our first attempts at documenting the steps for disaster recovery were a little clumsy and hard to maintain. We are now on our third iteration of our DR/BC plan, and have refined it to identify the response needed for various types and levels of events—a snow day or an RMLSweb outage to the loss of our corporate facility due to earthquake or fire.
Everyone at RMLS™ has a role in helping to respond appropriately to situations that threaten the safety of employees and the continuity of the services we provide. Of course, the highest priority in any crisis is care for life and physical safety of anyone present, if that is an issue. After that, attention goes to reducing loss of data and assets. Since our service is critical to our subscribers, our goal is uninterrupted service, so a focus on speedy recovery and communication are key elements of our planning.
Part of that speedy recovery is having a redundant database and servers for RMLSweb. In 2008, we moved our DR/BC servers from a location in Portland to a building in Roseburg, built in partnership with the Douglas County Association of REALTORS®. Data is continually replicated to those servers, and during maintenance mode each month, RMLSweb actually operates from Roseburg while the main Portland servers receive their patches and updates.
Disaster recovery planning is not something that you can do once and forget about. It needs to be part of the business plan and a living, changing process
The next post will focus on listing data accuracy. If you have any questions you would like to have answered, I encourage you to post a comment.
Photo: iStockPhoto/Endurodog
![MLS Insight: Disaster Recovery Planning at RMLS™]()
by RMLS Communication Department | Jan 29, 2015
RMLS™ released a round of site improvements and bug fixes to RMLSweb that went live this morning. RE Technology is now available for free to RMLS™ subscribers, detail view has been expanded again, and a comparable mapping component has been added to the CMA report! Those are just a few of the improvements you may notice around the site starting today.
RE Technology
RMLS™ is now offering subscribers access to RE Technology free of charge. RE Technology is an educational resource for real estate professionals that shows agents how to use technology to find more leads, close more deals, and boost the bottom line. The site contains useful tools in addition to connecting REALTORS® to the knowledge to leverage these tools adeptly.
New users of RE Technology will need to create an account to begin using the site. Once you have an account, logging in to RMLSweb will also enable access to RE Technology without signing on again.
Access RE Technology on RMLSweb by navigating to one of the two links menus: either on the left sidebar of the desktop page, or under Toolkit in the navigation menu.
Detail View Grows Again
Detail view on RMLSweb has been a hit with users, so RMLS™ continues to integrate the feature throughout the site. Starting today, subscribers will be able to access the detail view tab on search results for taxes, hotsheets, open houses, and broker tours.
Detail view presents a solution to some common problems subscribers encounter. Users can switch between reports without reloading an entire page, meaning a subscriber can browse listings more quickly without losing their place in a long list of search results.
Map of Comparables in CMA Report
Where are the comparable properties located in relation to the subject property? The CMA report now includes the option to include a map of comparables in the report.
Access this feature by navigating to the Report tab in CMA Profiles. Under “Options,” check the box that includes “Map of Comparables to Your Home,” then generate your report as usual.
Easy!
More Improvements…
Several other improvements and bug fixes were released along with the new features named above.
• Certain error messages on RMLSweb that used to appear in black text now appear in red, a visual popout that helps subscribers see what needs to be changed for a search to work.
• Subscribers using Chrome may have experienced issues clicking on the calendar button to select a date. This bug has been fixed.
• Did you know that it is impossible to search for bank-owned and short sale properties at the same time? It’s a common error, and RMLSweb now sports an error message clarifying the problem when it occurs.
And Even More Improvements!
Even more minor changes were made this week—housecleaning business that subscribers may never notice because we’re aiming to create a seamless user experience.
If you ever encounter something you think may have changed, consider looking at the deployment history of RMLSweb or contacting the RMLS™ Help Desk for assistance at (503) 872-8002 or (877) 256-2169.
UPDATE (February 4, 2015)
RMLS™ has discovered an issue with the new CMA mapping feature, so it has been taken offline temporarily. We are working hard to resolve the issue and restore the feature as quickly as possible.
by RMLS Communication Department | Jan 26, 2015
This Week’s Lockbox Activity
For the week of January 12-18, 2015, these charts show the number of times RMLS™ subscribers opened SentriLock lockboxes in Oregon and Washington. Washington and Oregon both saw an increase in activity this week.
For a larger version of each chart, visit the RMLS™ photostream on Flickr.
MLS Insight is a series about how things work at RMLS™.
