IBM i CTO Steve Will covers enhancements for security, database, system administration, application development and HA/DR

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