From Steve Will on the 8^th April 2025

Happy new release day IBM i community! Welcome to 2025 and my first blog of the year. We are starting the new year off with a big one, as today we announce IBM i 7.6 and IBM i 7.5 TR6. Anyone following closely in the community, or anyone who has seen and heard me speak on countless webcasts, user groups and conferences, has probably picked up on the fact that the IBM i team has determined a three-year release cycle as the “sweet spot” for the platform. And, if you’ve noticed in the IBM i Strategy Paper, we’ve had 2025 on the roadmap for the next release for a while now, and today we are delivering on that commitment. 

If you’ve read my blog in the past, you probably have seen when we have a new version or Technology Release, I typically cover some of the top features and capabilities and link to other websites and documentation for more details. Today will be no different, as I will be focusing on some of the highlights of IBM i 7.6 and have included links to further details and information on each section. With security coming in as a top concern on the minds of IBM i professionals once again in the IBM i Marketplace Survey from Fortra this year, we will start there and focus on a major update in IBM i 7.6 that our community and advisory council groups have been requesting from us:

Security

IBM i 7.6 introduces the integration of multi-factor authentication (MFA) into the platform. If you aren’t aware, MFA is a security mechanism that requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a system or application. For quite a while, many of the applications which run on IBM i have used MFA to validate that their users are authorized to perform whatever actions they are trying to take: view banking information, execute a trade, sign a purchase agreement and so on. In fact, these days most of us have to use MFA in our daily lives quite frequently.

For IBM i, integration of MFA is designed to secure access to, and management of, the system and its data. The integrated MFA support leverages a time-based one-time password (TOTP) to ensure that users who are trying to access a system have the proper authority and security clearance to do so. This includes all system states, even when not connected to the internet for QSECOFR, which greatly enhances the security posture of IBM i.

Database

With the release of IBM i 7.6, Db2 for i is enhanced to include new capabilities for SQL application developers, database engineers and administrators, and anyone interested in modern and advanced security management. For the SQL programmer, SQL has been enhanced in Db2 for i with new and powerful capabilities. Examples include ideas requested by the community, such as the data-change-table-reference being extended to allow for UPDATE and DELETE statements. The SQLSTATE_INFO table returns information about SQLSTATE values used by Db2 for i and the corresponding SQLCODEs. For database engineers, the DUMP_PLAN_CACHE procedure is enhanced to provide a QRO_HASH optional filter, making it easier to capture SQL Query Engine details for specific SQL statements.

The team updates the documentation and support pages frequently, so make sure to bookmark this page as your resource for the latest information on Db2 for i.

System Administration

The Navigator for i interface continues to be extended and improved to provide the tasks and features system administrators require for accessing and managing IBM i environments. With the move to subscription-term licensing, license expiration information and warnings are improved and now included on the main multisystem dashboard and on the “manage a single system” page, giving system administrators a streamlined view either by system or entire environment on the status of IBM i licenses.

Navigator has also been fully updated to support using MFA to connect and work with Navigator and to also give system administrators the tools and interfaces they need to manage the configuration of MFA for the system and each user. To further increase security, additional new interfaces have been added to Navigator to help system administrators make secure connections to IBM i. To learn more about these updates and the latest with Navigator for i, bookmark this page.

Application Development

The Code for IBM i open source project has been making rapid improvements to help address the needs of IBM i developers and give them the best tools for writing and updating business-critical applications using modern methodologies and techniques. These improvements include the ability to quickly format free-format RPG and support for fixed-format RPG references. Support for batch and Service Exit Point (SEP) debugging has been added, as has Polish, Norwegian and German translation, to expand the global audience of the open source project and make it possible for more developers to contribute.

The Db2 for i extension of Code for IBM i has also improved SQL syntax validation and integration with AI platforms for natural language processing. We’re excited to include this in our announcement so more people know about it, and we’re grateful to the many community members who contribute so much to this strategic set of tools. To learn more about Code for IBM i and install it, go here.

HA/DR

IBM PowerHA SystemMirror for i has been updated and improved with extended capabilities in Power Virtual Server to allow clients to do high availability and disaster recovery in the IBM Cloud. This means the equivalency of on-prem capabilities are now available in a public cloud environment, including support for Global Replication Service (GRS), FlashCopy, and switchable LUN. These capabilities enable automated storage-based HA and DR solutions for IBM i in Power Virtual Server, allowing clients to build out an IT architecture for business resiliency without having to acquire additional hardware. To learn about the latest with PowerHA, go here, and for more on Power Virtual Server, go here.

IBM i 7.6 will be generally available on Friday, April 18. To learn more about IBM i 7.6, join me on this webcast this Thursday, April 10, at 9 a.m. EST. I’ll be joined by IBM Champions for Power Steve Bradshaw of Rowton IT Solutions and Steve Wolk of PC Richard & Son. Together, we’ll have a “fireside chat” about the new features and capabilities of IBM i 7.6, their experiences with testing the new release, and what the community should be most excited about. We’ll also be taking your questions live during the webcast.