Skyward Data

About Skyward Data

Conversations That Power Smarter Data Strategies for AI, Cloud, and Innovation. Skyward Data brings you exclusive conversations with experts shaping the future of enterprise data. Discover how organizations are transforming data access, storage, and AI integration to fuel faster innovation and smarter decisions. Each episode explores how to unlock the full power of your enterprise data—whether it lives on IBM Z, in the cloud, or deep in decades-old tape archives. We dive into real-world stories, bold ideas, and practical strategies for making mainframe and legacy data instantly accessible for AI, analytics, compliance, and modernization. If you're building smarter systems, training better models, or powering transformation with trusted data—Skyward Data is your guide. No fluff. No jargon. Just smart conversations about enterprise data, done right. Learn more at virtualzcomputing.com #AI #Mainframe #EnterpriseData #HybridCloud #DataAccess #SkywardData #VirtualZComputing

Publisher

VirtualZ

Category

business · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 Dec 2023

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

144 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Built Today, for Today: Why Enterprises Are Choosing a New Standard for Data Sharing

   Most enterprise data sharing tools were designed in the 1980s and 1990s, before TCP/IP was common and before the public cloud existed. In this episode of Skyward Data, Jeanne Glass, founder and CEO of VirtualZ Computing, explains why those tools can't keep up with today's demands, and why customers, outsourcers, systems integrators, and software providers are turning to PropelZ as the new standard for enterprise data sharing. Every business unit wants data for analytics, reporting, cloud, and AI. Partners and service providers need data feeds to run the platforms the business just bought. Software providers are waiting on their customers' data to go live. With legacy managed file transfer, ETL, and CDC tools, every one of those feeds has to be designed, built, and maintained by hand, with hop after hop between systems. Jeanne shares how VirtualZ co-founder and CTO Vince Re explains why the older tools struggle today. Vince is the original author of CA Top Secret, drove the vision behind most of what became Broadcom's mainframe portfolio, and was elected to the kernel.org team for his Linux-on-mainframe work. In this episode: Why data sharing tools from the 1980s and '90s don't scale to today's cloud, analytics, AI, and partner requirements Design, build, maintain vs. install and run: what "built today, for today" means How PropelZ, VirtualZ's patented enterprise data sharing technology, works: multiplatform (IBM Z, IBM i, Linux, UNIX, Windows, on premises or any cloud), any input to any output, one hop, filtering at the source, and no custom code Why a Fortune 500 retailer, its systems integrator, and its outsourcer, who already owned every legacy tool, each tested PropelZ and chose it: transfers that took 12 to 14 hours finished in 2 to 4 hours Sustained throughput of around 56,000 records per second, including 60.9 million records in 18 minutes How Zafin, an AI banking platform provider, runs PropelZ on Linux to take in mainframe data from its bank customers How Lozen, FlowZ, and Zaac bring the same built-today approach to data on IBM Z Learn more and see customer and partner validation: https://virtualzcomputing.com/evidence-validation/ Schedule a briefing: https://calendly.com/jeanne-glass-virtualzcomputing

2. 

   6 Oct 2026

   Give Cloud Apps Live Access to Mainframe VSAM Data — Without Copying It

   Every plan to use mainframe data in the cloud starts the same way: "first, make a copy." In this Skyward Data episode, VirtualZ Computing Founder & CEO Jeanne Glass and Co-Founder & CTO Vince Re — the original author of CA Top Secret — explain how to give cloud, distributed, and AI applications live, real-time read and write access to mainframe VSAM data without moving or copying it, using VirtualZ Lozen. Why does every mainframe-to-cloud project reach for a copy first? Because mainframe data is complex — VSAM, EBCDIC, mainframe-specific formats — so the reflex is to extract it, transform it, and replicate it to a data lake, warehouse, or database. But every copy is a duplicate to store, secure, and govern; a pipeline to build and maintain; and a source of drift from the live system of record. Vince shares how one financial-services company spent two years trying to make a change-data-capture (CDC) model work in production before giving up. Lozen takes the copy out of the middle. The data never leaves z/OS. Applications running in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or any distributed environment read and write VSAM, QSAM, sequential files, PDS, and GDG data using standard file-system calls — the mainframe presented as a standard NFS network drive, with no proprietary API and no application rewrite. Because there's only one copy of the data, you get real-time integrity on reads and writes: no stale data, no cross-platform locking, no reconciling updates back to the mainframe. Existing RACF, ACF2, and Top Secret security still governs every access — even from a remote cloud app — and the work is zIIP-eligible to contain MIPS. Jeanne and Vince also cover a problem most teams miss: because mainframe data is shared data, moving one application off the mainframe usually forces you to move ten others that share its files. Lozen ends that — modernize one app and leave its data where it is. And they draw an honest line between live access and replication: use Lozen for real-time, file-system read/write access where the mainframe stays authoritative; use PropelZ (VirtualZ's no-code replication product) for SQL/relational access, tools like Tableau or Snowflake, or heavy AI query offload. Most large mainframe sites need both. In this episode: • Why "just make a copy" is the reflex for mainframe data — and what it really costs • How Lozen gives cloud and distributed apps live read/write access to mainframe VSAM data with no movement • Real-time data integrity for reads and writes, with no locking or reconciliation headaches • How existing RACF/ACF2/Top Secret security is preserved and how Lozen is zIIP-eligible • The shared-data problem: modernize one app without moving the ten that share its files • Live access vs. replication — when to use Lozen and when to use PropelZ If you're a mainframe architect, data platform leader, application modernization or migration lead, or an AI and analytics owner getting IBM Z data into the cloud, this conversation is for you. See Lozen in action — including the AWS PartnerCast featuring Lozen with Rocket Enterprise Server and AWS services — and explore more at https://virtualzcomputing.com/lozen. Skyward Data is the podcast from VirtualZ Computing — the first woman-founded, woman-led, and Native American-founded and -led mainframe software provider. VirtualZ's no-code, install-and-run portfolio (PropelZ, FlowZ, Lozen, and Zaac) connects IBM Z mainframe data to cloud, AI, and analytics without rewrites, pipelines, or forced migrations. Learn more: https://virtualzcomputing.com

3. 

   22 Sept 2026

   "Just Send Us the File": The Two-Sided Data Sharing Problem Between ISVs and Their Customers, and the One Engine That Solves Both

   Why does "just send us the file" take six to eight weeks per extract when an enterprise shares data with its ISV, and what changes when PropelZ from VirtualZ Computing runs on both sides of the feed, whether the data lives on IBM Z, IBM i, Linux, Windows or in a SaaS tenant? Every ISV runs on data its customers have to send it. Every enterprise sends its data to a long list of ISVs and service providers to get the service it already paid for. Both sides are waiting on the same file: a custom extract program somewhere in the customer's estate, and a one-off intake on the ISV's side that decodes a different layout from every customer. The enterprise isn't getting what it pays for. The ISV isn't delivering what it sold. Neither of them caused it. In this episode of Skyward Data, the podcast from VirtualZ Computing, founder and CEO Jeanne Glass and co-founder and CTO Vince Re take the file out of the middle: → Why "just send us the file" is a two-sided problem nobody has owned, and what it costs: six-to-eight-week extracts, months of backlog, jobs that break when a field changes, and on the mainframe, metered MIPS that raise the licence cost of everything else running → Send side: one product replaces tens of hand-built extracts from any system; the layout you already have, a COBOL copybook or a database table definition, is the spec → Receive side: one engine decodes every customer's data inside the ISV platform, on any system with a Java environment, and the customer installs nothing → Who owns the metadata: the customer declares what it will send, or the ISV publishes what it needs, and PropelZ supports both → The hybrid model: the ISV runs PropelZ by default; the customer runs it on its own side to filter before sending and cut the ISV's processing by roughly half → On the mainframe: zIIP-eligible so it doesn't drive the MIPS bill, or run on Linux, Windows or Linux on IBM Z, with round trips back to VSAM when you need them → Incremental every ten minutes without turning on CDC or journaling, and inventories of thousands of files run in parallel → How a top-tier global bank asked its banking platform ISV to use PropelZ, and the ISV built it into its platform as a container with no mainframe in its estate → A proof of concept of close to 10,000 datasets: Friday to Monday on the incumbent tool, a couple of hours on PropelZ PropelZ is VirtualZ Computing's patented, no-code data movement and decoding platform for IBM Z, IBM i, Linux, Windows, UNIX, VSE, VM and any Java-enabled environment. It reads VSAM, sequential, Db2, IMS, IDMS, copybook-described EBCDIC, database and delimited data in place, transforms it in flight, and delivers it in one hop to more than 100 JDBC targets and native connectors including Snowflake, Databricks, Splunk, Power BI, Vertex AI and SageMaker, at 56,000 records per second, mainframe to cloud. Topics: ISV data sharing, enterprise data sharing, customer onboarding, data extraction, IBM Z, z/OS, zIIP, IBM i, Linux, COBOL copybook, VSAM, Db2, SaaS data, data integration, PropelZ, VirtualZ Computing Listen to more Skyward Data episodes: https://virtualzcomputing.com/podcasts/

Who has been a guest on Skyward Data

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Jeanne Glass
• Dustin Froyum
• Vince Re
• VirtualZ Computing
• Marc Sokol

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

10,750

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 66 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

78

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

60

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.