What separates CIO visionaries from CIO operators in 2026, and how do you build an AI-ready enterprise without risky migrations? In this episode of Skyward Data, the podcast from VirtualZ Computing, VirtualZ CEO Jeanne Glass shares a CIO vision for modernizing the enterprise without operational disruption — arguing that the real bottleneck for AI and modern analytics isn't infrastructure, it's access to trusted enterprise data.

Jeanne Glass unpacks the architectural shift forward-thinking CIOs are making: real-time data access instead of wholesale migration, hybrid cloud execution, elastic storage modernization, and incremental transformation that turns legacy platforms into engines of innovation rather than projects to rip out. The throughline: modernization is no longer a migration project — it's a data strategy.

In this episode of Skyward Data, the podcast from VirtualZ Computing:

- What separates CIO visionaries from CIO operators in 2026

- Why access to trusted enterprise data, not infrastructure, is the real AI bottleneck

- The shift from risky one-time migrations to real-time data access

- Hybrid cloud execution, elastic storage modernization, and incremental transformation

- How CIOs turn legacy platforms into engines of innovation without disruption

This is the problem VirtualZ Computing's no-code portfolio is built to solve: PropelZ (moving and replicating IBM Z mainframe data to the cloud, proven at 56,000 records per second), Lozen (live in-place data access), FlowZ (cloud storage for backup and archive), and Zaac (cloud and SAN as native z/OS storage) — making enterprise data accessible to cloud, analytics, and AI with no code and no homegrown pipelines.

Topics: CIO strategy, AI-ready enterprise, mainframe modernization, real-time data access, hybrid cloud, storage modernization, data strategy, IBM Z, no-code data integration, enterprise data.

Listen to more Skyward Data episodes: https://virtualzcomputing.com/podcasts/