dynaConnections Corporation announced today the rollout of connectMLS Version 2.3, an enhanced, "High Availability and High Performance" version of its Web-based Multiple Listing Service (MLS) Software. This new release takes advantage of sophisticated features in the underlying database software at the heart of connectMLS, Oracle(r) Database 10g. To date, connectMLS Version 2.3 is being used successfully, in production, by tens of thousands of real estate professionals.

In the world of MLS software, reliability and availability rank high on the priority list for MLS Associations and their membership. Simply put, Realtors need to get their data quickly and at all hours of the day. Accordingly, dynaConnections built connectMLS to run around the clock by including many provisions for redundancy and high availability throughout the system. In connectMLS Version 2.3, dynaConnections solidified this intent by deploying connectMLS on Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Real Application Clusters.

A "cluster" refers to a system where two or more computers (or nodes) are connected together in such a way that they behave like a single computer. By doing so, they can share the processing needs of the software running on them. Running Oracle Database 10g in a cluster provides customers with 24x7 application availability and the system can easily scale as needed. If a server in the cluster fails, the database continues running on the remaining servers, and if more processing power is needed to accommodate a growing user base, new servers are easily added to the cluster. dynaConnections built their highly available and scalable system on low cost x86 servers running Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Real Application Clusters.

"We had been running connectMLS on Oracle9i Database for over a year and were impressed with the way the system, running hundreds of thousands of ad-hoc queries per day, handled a steadily increasing number of users," says Runar Bjarnason, Chief Architect at dynaConnections. "When the time came to scale up, moving to Oracle Database 10g on a cluster configuration was the obvious choice. Oracle Database 10g not only provided the ease of managing a cluster, but also a variety of other new features that we are now exploiting. Most importantly, we've already benefited from a near two-fold improvement in performance over our heavily taxed non-cluster configuration, which can be attributed both to the impressive efficiency of Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Real Application Clusters and some accompanying enhancements in connectMLS Version 2.3."

Willie Hardie, senior director of Database Marketing, of Oracle states, "dynaConnections are already realizing the business value of migrating their MLS application from a single server to a clustered system using Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Real Application Clusters. They've built a very reliable infrastructure that can incrementally grow to meet their future needs."

Tim Ford, President and CEO of dynaConnections also notes, "There has been a trend among some MLS organizations to provide multiple MLS browsers for their members, primarily to minimize the chances of down-time in the event of failure to one of their systems; the second system being a backup which they can always point to. A much more cost-effective solution to this problem is to use connectMLS which provides the necessary redundancy in one system and keeps other costs down, such as training and support, to name a few."