ROCKINGHAM — A company in charge of servers that crashed during a recent auction has issued an explanation.
Matt Corso, CEO at MarkNet Alliance, said there were two factors that led to “a perfect storm,” causing the servers rented by Iron Horse Auction Company to go down during bids on properties foreclosed by the Richmond County government.
“First, there was a high volume of bidders placing bids within seconds of each other,” he said in a statement. “This wasn’t only on-site bidders, but hundreds online as well. Think of it as trying to shove a watermelon in the opening of a straw.
“When you factor in the unusual volume of bids at the same time along with the number of tracts it was like simulating an attack of the server,” Corso continued. “It really was a perfect storm.”
Bidding started online April 23 and on-site bidding at Cole Auditorium began around 11 a.m. Tuesday, with bidders able to bid on multiple properties at one time, according to Iron Horse spokesman Scotty Baldwin. The servers started lagging around 12:15 p.m and before the hour was up, officials with Iron Horse decided to postpone.
Baldwin said the decision was made to protect the bidders — more than 50 bidders on-site and more than 150 registered online — and “to allow our software partners time to address the technological deficiencies.”
Mark Baysek, also with Iron Horse, said there were around 140 properties up for bid.
Corso added that the Iron Horse group “did a fantastic job of managing the auction and keeping everything going.”
“It also shows that their marketing approach was working, too, to attract this many people,” he said. “Servers have been reconfigured and we believe we now have a good solution in place."
Baysek said Friday that on-site bidding will resume at Cole Auditorium May 9 at noon.
“We have yet to announce when bidding online will resume, but will do so immediately when we receive word from MarkNet Alliance that they are ready to resume bidding, and after we have made our best effort to communicate with all current high bidders to verify their positions,” he said, adding he expects that to happen early next week.
“Iron Horse Auction Company has great confidence in our longtime partner, MarkNet Alliance,” Baysek added. “We are certain that our combined effort will result in a successful auction for everyone involved.
“We appreciate the public's participation in the auction, and the patience and understanding while we correct the issues,” he concluded. “As the old saying goes, technology is wonderful when it works, and troublesome when it does not.”
