Since the official Valence 6 release in September, many sites currently using a prior version of Valence face the somewhat daunting task of getting users to change their URLs to the new instance. If you're not using some sort of an alias or permanent redirect in Apache — meaning the port number for your Valence instance is part of the URL — then you're looking at potentially hundreds of users needing to update their browser bookmarks to point to a different port.

A big tip-of-the-hat to Seiden Group's Alan Seiden for this month's highly useful Valence tip-of-the-month...

Your IBM i HTTP Server powered by Apache is a powerful web-serving system akin to a bank staffed with multiple fast-working tellers. The AJAX requests coming in from your front-end apps are like customers entering the bank to perform transactions. Each "customer" queues up in an orderly line on a first-in/first-out basis, and is serviced by the next available "teller" as soon as they're finished dealing with the prior customer.

With every user action in the browser that results in a call to a Valence instance running on your IBM i Power Server, a wealth of data about the user's session is sent to the integrated Apache Server.  This information can be accessed by your back-end RPG programs to potentially alter how they respond to the front-end. Want to know what URL is on the user's browser page?  Or what type of browser is being used?

You already know that installing Valence on IBM i and using it internally within your corporate network is fast and easy.  Your company’s employees should also be able to access your Valence instances through a standard VPN connection when they are located outside of your company’s physical network.  But what about when you need to provide secure access to Valence apps to the outside world directly through the Internet?