SHARE 2026 Puts Spotlight on Modernization Without Risk

SHARE Orlando is one of the most influential global gatherings for professionals who run mission-critical mainframe, datacenter, and enterprise storage environments. This year, our team attended and brought back the most important topics of the conference.

If you only take three things back to your z/OS team from winter SHARE 2026, it’s this: Modernizing mainframe for the AI era means design for clean recoveries, high demand predictable performance, and upgrading data infrastructure without raising risk or cost.

SHARE is, once again, showing that mainframe is still alive and kicking. Mainframe is embracing modernization and agentic AI. Mainframe is still at the heart of most the Fortune 100 companies' strategy, like IBM, which embraces AI to process transactions and for fraud detection, and to speed up the process. Hitachi and Brocade are ideally positioned to help customers in similar positions sustain very high loads with low latency.

_{Photo: SHARE Orlando 2026 Event Entrance}

1. Predictable Performance Beats Peak Performance

AI and mixed workloads are hammering mainframe datasets in new ways. Consistency under pressure matters more than a one‑time IOPS number. That means engineering for flat tail latency, not just big peaks, is essential.

Takeaways for app owners:

• Prioritize high cache‑hit rates, efficient caching, and a strong back‑end to keep response times stable at high load.
• Use storage‑internal, real‑time events and AIOps signals to detect and prevent performance issues before users feel them.
• Leverage one‑view simplicity for storage management—because fewer clicks and clearer signals mean faster MTTR and fewer mistakes.

2. Clean Recoveries are Table Stakes

Ransomware and logical corruption aren’t theoretical anymore. Recovery plans should be provably clean, not just fast. That means immutable copies, clean‑point verification, and the ability to stand up on different hardware if the primary is suspect.

Takeaways for CISOs and DBAs:

• Standalone cyber‑resiliency that doesn’t rely on the primary array is an essential design, with the option to restore to a different array, offering protection from insider risk and guidance to keep DB2 archive logs (plus image copies) accessible — so you can roll forward to just before the event
• Scale matters: Up to 1,022 immutable images and transparent snapshots support frequent, low‑impact protection while keeping production online; plus automation options to accelerate clean cutovers.
• Enforce Resource Access Control Facilities (RACF) or equivalent profiles and limit access to dangerous commands, so recovery tools can’t be turned against you

3. Modernize Storage & SAN Without Risk or Cost Spikes

Raising capability and security while keeping availability sacrosanct can be done at the same time—and keep OPEX predictable. The trick is nondisruptive everything, tight alignment with IBM roadmaps, and a SAN that’s lossless, low latency, and smart.

In order to make a business case for a solution that modernizes storage, consider elements of the following:

• Meets sustainability goals: Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals are embedded into every layer of operation.
• Secure, sustainable, and available solution all in one: True eight nines platform availability, non-disruptive microcode upgrades, and Common Criteria/FIPS posture.
• Offers low-risk refresh: IFCES encryption is required to connect next‑gen IBM Z‑Series for new storage by moving onto supported, qualified stacks
• Enables business continuity: GUI control and fine‑grained security, so ops teams can execute replication safely and consistently

_{Photo: Liam Yu the author of the post}

Hitachi Vantara and Brocade for Fast, Safe Mainframe Modernization

By treating storage and SAN as one engineered system, Brocade and Hitachi Vantara embody the solutions required to achieve the three biggest takeaways from SHARE 2026, embodying the following features:

• Up to 55% more I/O and 50% lower environmental costs after consolidating on Hitachi VSP One for Mainframe.
• 80% faster recovery and 95% faster backups with an immutable‑first architecture
• Quantify downtime savings potential with Hitachi Vantara cyber‑resilience solutions, paired immutable snapshots for predictable clean recovery
• Reduce human error and OpEx with Brocade Gen 8 (including switched-FICON)

Hitachi VSP One Block High‑End provides cyber‑resilient, IBM‑qualified storage with non‑disruptive lifecycle ops. Brocade Gen 8 directors provide the low‑latency, lossless paths and autonomous‑SAN analytics. Together, the solution delivers deterministic performance, provable clean recovery, and an upgrade‑friendly operating model built to last — without risk shocks or cost surprises.

Two leaders. One solution. Learn how Hitachi Vantara and Brocade have redefined the gold standard in modern storage networking by delivering future-proof performance, resilience, and security.