Optimal Blue Launches New Engine with Newly Designed Production Sites

Engine enables production sites to improve speed, agility and scalability PLANO, Texas, March 23, 2009 ? 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 2 to 3 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 it?s 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. About Optimal Blue Founded in 2002, Optimal Blue is a Web-based provider of product eligibility and pricing engine (PPE) and secondary marketing automation technology and services. Based in Plano, Texas, Optimal Blue has developed a comprehensive suite of products designed to give lenders the ability to automate the management and distribution of their products and pricing, enabling originators to then source, manage, price and lock loans in a way that is efficient, accurate and easy to use. Without having to be technology experts, Optimal Blue?s solutions allow clients to leverage superior technology and content for a competitive advantage. For more information, please visit http://www.optimalblue.com/.