VirtualZ as the One-Stop Shop for Hybrid Cloud Data Access
For data professionals working in organizations that run their business on hybrid cloud infrastructures, accessing and leveraging mainframe and cloud data has historically been a complex and costly challenge. Whether the goal is modernizing storage and business applications, enabling AI/ML workflows, building data lakes, or ensuring robust data security, traditional methods like Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes, Change Data Capture (CDC) tools, and custom-coded data pipelines introduce latency, security risks, and high costs.
VirtualZ eliminates these barriers with seamless, real-time data access and integration solutions. Our Lozen™, PropelZ™, and Zaac™ products empower data professionals to effortlessly connect IBM Z data to modern platforms — whether for storage, applications, AI/ML, data lakes, or analytics — without replication, middleware, or manual intervention.
Top 2025 Initiatives for Data Professionals
As data professionals prepare for 2025, several key initiatives are shaping their strategies to drive innovation and efficiency across the organization:
- Modernizing Applications with Real-Time Data Access
Goal: Enable real-time access to mainframe data for application modernization and hybrid cloud strategies.
How VirtualZ Helps: VirtualZ’s Lozen provides real-time, bidirectional access to mainframe data, allowing applications to read and write data without replication or ETL.
- Enabling AI/ML Workflows with Seamless Data Integration
Goal: Integrate mainframe data into AI/ML pipelines for training and inference.
How VirtualZ Helps: VirtualZ’s PropelZ streams mainframe data to AI/ML platforms like AWS SageMaker, Google Vertex AI, and Databricks, enabling real-time access without data movement.
- Building Scalable Data Lakes with Historical Data
Goal: Leverage historical mainframe data for advanced analytics and AI/ML model training.
How VirtualZ Helps: VirtualZ’s Zaac provides cost-effective cloud storage for historical data, enabling secure, on-demand access for data lakes and analytics.
- Enhancing Data Security and Compliance
Goal: Ensure data pipelines meet stringent security and regulatory requirements.
How VirtualZ Helps: VirtualZ keeps sensitive mainframe data on-platform while enabling secure access for modern workflows, ensuring compliance with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.
- Optimizing Storage Costs with Hybrid Cloud Solutions
Goal: Reduce storage costs by leveraging cloud storage for mainframe data.
How VirtualZ Helps: VirtualZ’s Zaac makes cloud storage look and act like native IBM Z storage, enabling cost-effective data management without compromising security.
How VirtualZ Computing Powers Data Goals
VirtualZ removes the barriers to modern data integration, enabling data professionals to seamlessly connect IBM Z data with modern platforms and workflows — without disruption, complexity, or additional infrastructure costs.
Lozen: Real-Time, Read/Write Mainframe Data Access
Lozen provides real-time, bidirectional access to mainframe data — enabling live data integration for applications, AI/ML, and analytics.
- Application Modernization: Enable modernized applications to read and write mainframe data in real time without changing the data’s location.
- Hybrid Cloud & On-Prem Support: Securely connect IBM Z data to AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and on-prem platforms.
- No-Code Data Integration: Seamlessly integrates with existing applications, eliminating costly middleware.
“Lozen enables partial and incremental re-platform projects, with some applications being re-platformed and others staying on the mainframe. Being able to transparently access mainframe VSAM data in real time really helps re-platform projects move forward — without having to build additional processes or controls around moving the workload, all while maintaining data integrity and currency.”
— Neil Fowler, SVP, Software Engineering, Rocket Software
PropelZ: No-Code, Streaming Mainframe Data to the Cloud
PropelZ offers one-way, real-time integration of mainframe data with cloud platforms, AI models, and data lakes without the need for replication or ETL.
- AI/ML Integration: Power AI and analytics applications with live mainframe data.
- Cloud-Ready for AI Applications: Seamlessly connect to AWS SageMaker, Google Vertex AI, and Databricks.
- Reduce Storage Costs: Eliminate redundant data movement and infrastructure overhead.
“PropelZ is a very straightforward install — you create the ZFS, upload it, untar it, and it’s ready to go. It doesn’t take much time at all, just a couple of hours to get the product laid down and installed in a testing environment.”
— Jerry Edgington, Senior Solutions and Innovation Consultant, Mainline Information Systems
Zaac: Secure, On-Demand Storage for Mainframe Data
Zaac makes cloud storage look and act like native IBM Z storage, enabling cost-effective data management for AI, BI, and analytics teams.
- Cost-Optimized Cloud Storage: Store mainframe datasets securely in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
- Real-Time Access to Historical Data: Securely retrieve archived mainframe data on demand for analytics and compliance.
- Enhanced Security & Compliance: Encryption and access controls protect sensitive business data.
“Perhaps most challenging to conventional thinking is the company’s Zaac solution, which allows mainframe applications to use cloud storage as if it were native DASD. This brings the kind of flexible storage options that distributed systems have enjoyed for years to the mainframe world, but without compromising on the platform’s renowned security and reliability characteristics.”
— Dale Vile, Co-Founder, Freeform Dynamics
Key Benefits for Data Professionals
- Eliminate Data Silos: Seamlessly integrate mainframe and cloud data with enterprise-wide workflows.
- Accelerate Innovation: Enable real-time data access for applications, AI/ML, and analytics.
- Reduce Costs: No more expensive ETL tools, custom coding, or manual processes.
- Improve Compliance & Security: Keep data on IBM Z while enabling controlled access for modern workflows.
- Enable Hybrid Cloud & Multi-Cloud Strategies: Integrate with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and on-prem storage.
Conclusion: VirtualZ as the One-Stop Shop for Hybrid Cloud Data Access
Data professionals need fast, secure, and cost-effective access to data to drive innovation across the organization. Traditional data movement solutions create unnecessary complexity, increase costs, and delay insights.
VirtualZ eliminates these challenges, providing seamless, real-time access to mainframe data without ETL, replication, or performance trade-offs. Whether your goal is modernizing applications, enabling AI/ML workflows, building data lakes, or ensuring robust data security, VirtualZ is the one-stop shop for all your mainframe data needs.
- Lozen enables read/write access to IBM Z data for modern applications and workflows.
- PropelZ seamlessly streams mainframe data to cloud platforms and AI/ML models.
- Zaac provides on-demand cloud storage for historical data, reducing storage costs while maintaining security.
With VirtualZ, your mainframe data is no longer locked away — it’s a strategic asset for driving innovation across your organization.
Learn More
- Watch demos of Lozen, PropelZ, and Zaac.
- Try Lozen, PropelZ, and Zaac.
- Review all VirtualZ Solutions, Thought Leadership papers, and Solution Briefs.
- Explore our YouTube channel, podcasts, and blog.
- Still have questions? Contact us.