July 27, 2026
Last week, IBM announced PTFs containing a slew of new Db2 for i features and enhancements as part of the Technology Refresh for IBM i 7.6 and 7.5. While the database is just a part of the story for IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8, it’s a critical piece of the puzzle. Here’s a preview of the new stuff that you can now play with.
As part of the summer TRs that we covered last week, IBM delivered five functional enhancements to Db2 for i as part of the Summer TR, shipped one security enhancement, one enhancement for database engineering, unveiled 17 new IBM i services, and enhanced another 10.
“There’s all kinds of different enhancements,” Scott Forstie, a senior technical staff member (STSM) and database architect for IBM, said in a recent Guided Tour. “Some of them are for programmers, some are for the admins. Security, security, security! Everybody should be talking about security. And we are taking great strides forward with providing SQL techniques to be able to understand and better secure your IBM i. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?”
As Forstie mentioned on the webinar, it was a long and cold winter in Minnesota – a throwback to the types of winters the northerners used to have on a regular basis. But one of the best things to come out of all that forced indoor time was the new CREATE_DATA_JOURNAL_READER scalar function in Db2 for i, which makes it easier for humans to understand changes made to journaled database files.
Since the journal entries for database inserts, updates, and deletes are stored in hexadecimal format, it’s difficult to understand what they mean. The new scalar function in 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8 provides the framework for users to create their own helper functions “for any table that you want to understand the data or journal entries,” Forstie said.
IBM added one new database engineering feature to Db2 for i that essentially acts as a directory pruner to prevent unwanted buildup in the IFS. The update, called SYSIBMADM.QIBM_SQEDEBUG_BY_DAYS, is a global variable that shows the number of days to keep IFS directories that were created by the SQL query engine that contain debug information. This feature supports both IBM i 7.6 and 7.5.
IBM added one security feature that is exclusive to IBM i 7.6. Called QIBM_IOSYSCFG_DDM, the function enables an administration to authorize distributed data management (DDM) operations through the new QIBM_IOSYSCFG_DDM function usage identifier, instead of using the *IOSYSCFG special authority.
IBM delivered five new functional enhancements to Db2 for i, all of which are available in both OSes. This includes:
- An enhancement to SQL Error Logging Facility (SELF) – technically the QSYS2.SQL_ERROR_LOG–that allows users to view the error in rows added by their own user ID. What’s more, the key that is used to identify duplicate rows has been expanded to include the statement operation
- The addition of trigger pseudo columns, a new way to access the file, library, and member that caused a trigger to fire, after regular name resolution for a column has failed
- An update to URL ENCODE services, which gives the SQL programmer the capability to make REST calls via SQL. This release adds support for RFC3986 encoding
- And two new functions – FROM_SYSTEM_TIMESTAMP and TO_SYSTEM_TIMESTAMP – that give the programmer more options for managing timestamps.
IBM delivered seven new IBM i services in QSYS2 for IBM i 7.6 TR2, and two for 7.5 TR8. Four of these IBM i services are only available in 7.6 TR2, including:
- CHANGE_SERVICE_TOOLS_SERVER_CONFIGURATION_ENTRY;
- SERVICE_TOOLS_SERVER_CONFIGURATION_ENTRY
- ADD_SERVICE_TOOLS_SERVER_CONFIGURATION_ENTRY
- And QSYS2.REMOVE_SERVICE_TOOLS_SERVER_CONFIGURATION_ENTRY_INFO. These services give admins the ability to view and change server configuration entry information using SQL, which can be useful when IPLing onto different hardware
IBM also released the QSYS2.EKM_INFO() table function, which returns information about an external key management (EKM) configuration. This also is only available on 7.6 TR2, which also supports the Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) capability that we covered last week. These advanced key management capabilities will not be made available for IBM i 7.5.
There are two IBM i services for QSYS2 that support both OS releases, including the CREATE_DATA_JOURNAL_READER scalar function discussed above, and QSYS2.GEOGRAPHIC_MIRRORING_INFO, which is a view that returns geographic mirror information for independent auxiliary storage pools (IASPs) that have geographic mirroring configured. Geographic mirroring is a data replication method used in IBM’s PowerHA and now its Migrate While Active product.
Meanwhile, over in the SYSTOOLS catalog – where IBM delivers optional utilities and helper functions, as opposed to QSYS2, which houses core SQL services and catalog views – IBM has delivered another ten new IBM i services, all of which are available for both OSes. These include:
- AUDIT_JOURNAL_JD() and SYSTOOLS.AUDIT_JOURNAL_RU(), which add support for specific audit journal entry types
- CHECK_COMMAND_SYNTAX(), a scalar function that validates the syntax of a CL command
- CVE_INFO(), a table function that returns a list Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) entries (another new feature that also shows up in Navigator, as discussed last week)
- GROUP_PTF_CURRENCY_LOCAL(), a table function that compares the PTF Groups installed on the partition by using an IFS file containing a version of the available service levels from the IBM Preventive Service Planning website (likely to be a major hit among the users)
- OVERRIDE_INFO_ALL, a view that returns one row for each file override for the current job
- And finally a series of scalar and table functions – SYSTOOLS.JOB_NAME, SYSTOOLS.JOB_NUMBER, SYSTOOLS.JOB_USER, and SYSTOOLS.JOB_NAME_DETAILS – that return information about a particular job
Meanwhile, IBM delivered 10 enhanced IBM i Services for 7.6 TR2 and nine for 7.5 TR8. The one IBM i service that’s not in 7.5 – QSYS2.ASP_INFO – returns information about ASPs, and has been updated to support geographic mirroring.
The enhanced IBM i services common to both OSes include:
- JOBLOG_INFO, a table function that returns data about messages in a job log; it was enhanced to support new order, limit, and timestamp parameters for the messages
- QCMDEXC(), a procedure and scalar function that can be used to execute CL commands; it was updated to provide the option to write the CL command to the job log
- SCHEDULED_JOB_INFO, a view that returns information about scheduled jobs; it was updated with a new column that is padded with leading zeros so it can be used with other CL commands
- SYSDISKSTAT and QSYS2.SYSDISKSTAT(), a view and a table function containing information about disks; they were updated to include additional values for Hyperswap
- GENERATE_SPREADSHEET(), a scalar function that generates a spreadsheet in the IFS based on results of a query or a database file; it was updated to provide the option of adding a sheet name
- And three services, QSYS2.SYSTEM_STATUS(), QSYS2.SYSTEM_STATUS_INFO, and QSYS2.SYSTEM_STATUS_INFO_BASIC, which are table functions and views that return information about the current partition; they were enhanced to add a column for PARTITION_UUID
Big Blue delivered a lot of other stuff for other components of the operating system and IBM i platform as a whole as part of the recent announcements, which we will dig into in future issues of The Four Hundred.