What is Hosted PowerLender?
Hosted PowerLender® represents an important breakthrough in Loan Origination System (LOS) deployment. Now, the full flexibility and power of a client-based LOS is available via the Internet. Hosted PowerLender (HPL) is not just a dumbed-down browser-based LOS. Hosted PowerLender is a fully functional, business-rules-based system that can originate, underwrite, process and close mortgage and consumer loans of all kinds. HPL requires nothing more on your end than your PC and an Internet connection, and Hosted PowerLender is centrally managed and deployed just like a Web application. So now you can have the best of both worlds: a fully-robust “desktop” application with the ease-of-deployment of a Web application. HPL is secure, fast and represents a tremendous advance in front-end mortgage technology.
How Does Hosted PowerLender Work?
First off, HPL is made possible because PowerLender is written with “desktop” Java, not a server-side language. That’s what makes PowerLender so much more functional than LOSs written as Web applications that require a browser. The browser requirement makes Web applications less efficient and somewhat difficult to use, because browsers impose a restrictive lowest common denominator on Web applications. Because applications like PowerLender don’t require a browser to operate, they provide the full range of functionality that desktop Java offers.
Historically, desktop applications have been more difficult to deploy because the application software had to be installed on every user’s PC. Despite this difficulty, many thought the superior performance and ease-of-use of desktop applications to be worth this extra effort. But now, thanks to improvements in “virtualization” technology, desktop applications no longer need to actually reside in a PC. In fact, HPL is essentially the desktop PowerLender LOS, residing within an Application Virtualization Server (AVS) that provides access to PowerLender’s superior functionality from your PC. The appearance and performance of Hosted PowerLender is no different than if PowerLender were running right on your local PC.
You can host PowerLender in-house or you can obtain hosting services from a third-party managed service provider. The hosting service provides the application server (housing the PowerLender programs and your customizations), database server (containing loan records) and the AVS and its associated Web portal (which allows for full-function Internet access). Users simply click on a specific URL, log in and start working. All data and transactions are secure.
Benefits of HPL
Due to the restrictions that browsers impose, Web applications are much less efficient than smart, desktop applications. In fact, Web deployment is ill-suited to applications that are used more than just occasionally. For example, office applications (like word processing) are seldom used as Web applications over the Internet. Why? Because Web applications are clumsy and power users don’t want to use clumsy applications. By contrast, PowerLender’s full range of robust functionality is available with HPL, but over the Internet, just like a web application. HPL provides all of PowerLender’s functionality and flexibility without the usability and/or deployment hassles associated with other systems. HPL can be customized just like traditional PowerLender. Screens, forms, reports, loan programs, workflow, data validation, etc. can be fully tailored to your specific requirements. Loan officers are only a login away from all the tools necessary to perform all the steps involved in mortgage and consumer lending, from prequalification to post closing.
Plus, with Hosted PowerLender, there’s no in-house computing infrastructure required, just a PC with Internet access. So no matter how big or small your operation, you can take advantage of the IT economies of scale enjoyed by the big lenders. And HPL scales almost instantly to accommodate growth. Uptime is virtually 24/7. Backups and redundancy are automatic. Security is tight. You can relax and focus on growing your lending business.
Very Low Cost
All of HPL’s capabilities are available for a reasonable upfront fee to help defray the initial set-up costs. Then when you go live, you only pay a modest subscription fee that covers the cost of the hosting service, secure Internet access, the PowerLender software, and all related software including the DBMS, virtualization server software and remote access software. Your HPL subscription even includes access to our PowerLender Help Center. ASC uses the very latest in open-source software to accompany Hosted PowerLender, including the Linux operating system, MySQL DBMS, Sun Report Writer (Open Office), Apache Web server and NoMachine AVM. These are all time-tested, open-source offerings that help us keep your subscription fee very low.
HPL Diagram
Maximum Uptime and Data Availability
ASC utilizes a state-of-the-art third-party data center to host HPL. To ensure maximum uptime, HPL provides a variety of back-up capabilities and other redundancies.
First, each lender’s virtual machine operates within a dual processor, quad core Production Server. Each production server provides a RAID 10 Disk Array. This is a data storage technology that permits high levels of storage reliability from standard disk-drive components by arranging the devices into arrays for redundancy. Each array provides two disk drives for production data, and two additional drives that mirror the production drives for redundancy. If a production drive fails, the mirror drives are automatically engaged with no downtime.
Second, the Network Attached Storage (NAS) is a backup capability that stores a complete copy of each lender’s virtual machine including the operating environment and software programs. ‘Volatile’ data (borrower data, custom set-up, etc.) backups are performed nightly and can be used to expedite the restoration of a lender’s virtual machine, if necessary.
Also, ASC provides a Standby Server. The Standby Server is a complete, “move-in-ready” server that can be used in the unlikely event of a failure of a production server that cannot be quickly rectified by data center technicians. The Standby Server is preconfigured by ASC with all the software necessary to replace a failed production server including operating system, database, AVS, etc. If a production server fails, the virtual machines for each PowerLender client on the failed server can be quickly moved here from the NAS and operation can resume. Optionally, ASC can provide a dedicated “hot” standby server at an additional cost.
Finally, ASC provides and administers a Backup Server housed in a separate data center located off-site from the production servers. Once each week, all ‘volatile’ data (borrower data, custom set-up, etc.) for each hosted system is sent to the backup server. In the unlikely event of a catastrophic failure of the production data center, the data contained on the Backup Server is used to help restore the production servers.
As you can see, HPS is flexible, powerful, inexpensive and secure. No other LOS is like it. For more information please contact 800-628-4687. Click here for a .PDF version of this document.
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