DAAR Leadership Update: Bright MLS

Bright MLS Logo, use WebsiteUPDATE (4/7/2022)

As you know, Bright MLS has been experiencing ongoing outages related to its Search system that have impacted subscribers and their ability to conduct business. DAAR leadership has been in frequent communication with Bright MLS regarding the outages and will continue to work with Bright directly to channel member feedback and contribute to ideas for better service and communication. Bright has also committed to providing daily updates for subscribers while this problem persists. Bright will also continue to utilize Bright’s Community Group on Facebook as well as its brightmls.com site banner to provide updates.

KEY BRIGHT MLS UPDATES

  1. What happened?
    Bright Search has been experiencing issues and has been unavailable on and off.
  2. What is the cause?
    Bright is working closely with CoreLogic to diagnose the issue. Initial findings suggest April 5’s interruption was caused by a database issue.
  3. How are Bright subscribers affected?
    During the interruptions, Bright users have been unable to access Search. In addition, auto emails and listing updates were delayed.
  4. What is Bright doing to make sure this doesn’t continue to happen?
    Bright and CoreLogic leadership are working closely together to put a plan in place to address these issues, both in the short and long term.
  5. Bright just raised our fees this week. How can we be charged more money for less service?
    Bright’s decision to increase rates was done after careful consideration of their shareholders. Rising costs across the board have affected businesses large and small, and Bright has not been immune to these inflationary pressures. These outage issues have not been caused by a lack of resources.

 

4/8/2022  (Message from Bright MLS President & CEO Brian Donnellan)

Dear Bright User,

The Matrix search database has remained stable since the interruption on Tuesday. We continue to work closely with CoreLogic to take steps to monitor the database in real time, and make any adjustments as needed. During each of the overnights, we also make database adjustments as needed based on reviews of activity logs. We have brought in outside experts to evaluate various components of the search platform and will continue the full review.

Yesterday saw the highest traffic and utilization of Matrix since last Thursday. While we are of course happy there have not been further interruptions of your work, our work continues to identify the root cause of the issues.

We will continue to share information with you as we have new updates.

Sincerely,
Brian

4/7/2022  (Message from Bright MLS President & CEO Brian Donnellan)

Dear Bright User,

Our teams continue to work closely with CoreLogic on the Matrix Search issues. Search has remained stable since the interruptions on Tuesday, however as we have mentioned until the root cause of these issues is clear, we cannot be fully confident there will not be further interruptions.

However, the teams have been eliminating items from the “suspected cause” list, which is helping us narrow our focus to fewer items that we can investigate more thoroughly, and we continue to work very closely with our vendor partners to address these issues.

Here’s what we implemented yesterday:

  • Additional monitoring put in place
  • Multiple database changes were released by 10:30 am Wednesday
  • Late last night, we worked throughout the night to optimize our existing database
  • Conducted a thorough infrastructure review with AWS – no infrastructure issues were found

Here’s what we have planned for today:

  • Reviewing changes recommended by the late-night task force, and will implement the approved changes by 10:30 am
  • Bright and CoreLogic will meet from 10am-2:30pm to monitor systems and work together towards a resolution

We know Matrix is critical to your business, and we will be sure to remain in regular communication with you until we resolve this issue completely.

Thanks again for your patience and support while we work through this.

Kindly,

Brian

4/6/2022  (Message from Bright MLS President & CEO Brian Donnellan)

Dear Bright User,

As you know, the Matrix system unfortunately experienced additional outages yesterday and we want to update you where we are in terms of the work we are doing with CoreLogic.

Operationally, Matrix Search was up and down twice during the day Tuesday. After service was restored following the second outage, Matrix Search remained up and stable during the evening and overnight hours.

Unfortunately, until we are able to identify the root cause, we can anticipate recurring issues with the Matrix platform. That said, we fully understand the gravity of the situation, and the impact it’s causing. Please know that the entire Bright team continues to be all hands-on deck to resolve these issues, and have been fully engaged with CoreLogic’s senior team, and our counterparts at AWS to create four workstreams to help us address and mitigate these issues as expeditiously as possible:

  1. Matrix application
  2. Matrix database
  3. Matrix infrastructure
  4. Matrix data movement

This morning, we are taking steps to reduce the data load on Matrix itself to help increase stability. We may also temporarily disable some of the widgets that appear on our Workspace home screen as part of that load reduction. This will not affect any of the functionality of your tools, however it may help improve overall stability. You will still be able to access the widgets through the Clients menu.

We will provide daily updates to you by email until these issues are resolved, and truly appreciate your patience while we work hard to restore Matrix to a stable state. Our teams are working throughout the day and night to identify and address the issues, and you have my commitment, as well as the commitment of the entire Bright and CoreLogic team that we won’t rest until we fix this.

Yours in Real Estate,
Brian

 

4/5/2022  (Message from Bright MLS President & CEO Brian Donnellan)

Dear Bright User,

As you know, we have experienced issues with the Matrix search system over the past 30 days, a system that we license from real estate technology vendor CoreLogic, a vendor used by many large MLSs across the country. It powers several critical functions you count on, including Search and automated emails to your clients. During this 30-day time period, we’ve experienced several major outages to CoreLogic’s Matrix system, including today’s interruptions.

Over this past month, we’ve done everything CoreLogic has recommended – and after Friday’s outage, the Bright tech teams worked late into the night and through the weekend with the CoreLogic team to try and find a solution to this recurring issue.

We know that access to Bright’s systems are critical to your day-to-day activities, so first off, we’d like to apologize for the inconvenience and strain these outages have caused you.

We are taking definitive action to ensure that Bright has reliable systems in place that you can depend on to run your businesses.

Here’s what we are doing:

  • First, we are working with CoreLogic’s senior team to identify and implement a permanent fix to the system downtime issues. Both the Bright and CoreLogic teams have this as their #1 priority until a fix is in place.
  • Next, we have also begun working towards finding an additional option for a new search system for our subscribers. We are currently in advanced talks with two other real estate technology providers – providers that are also used by many large MLSs across the country – to discuss how we can bring their solutions into the Bright ecosystem so that our subscribers can have alternative options to use.

It is our hope that with the teams of developers we have deployed to work with CoreLogic that we can find a permanent resolution to these system downtime issues.

Concurrently, we will also be moving forward with an alternate solution to Matrix from a different provider so that our subscribers have a choice of systems to use in addition to Matrix – we will provide updates on progress as we have them.

We know how important Bright is to your business, and you have my and every Bright employee’s commitment that we will not rest until we address and permanently fix these issues for you.

Brian Donnellan
President & Chief Executive Officer, Bright MLS