As part of the Veeam Vanguard program I was invited to participate in the community event in Prague, Czech Republic. This was the first time for me, and I’m forever grateful to be part of this group. This was also the first time of a combined event between Veeam MVPs, Veeam Legends and Veeam Vanguards.
The event was packed with sessions, community presentations, Q+As, and direct contact with the “Makers” of Veeam. Veeam is very good at listening to the community and customers for input to improve their products and notice shifts in the market.
Of course there was also a good amount of fun event; Thanks again to 11:11 for sponsoring the Go-Kart event, that was a lot of fun. Never raced with electric karts, but they are just as fast. Also many thanks to Wasabi for sponsoring the reception on the first evening.
During the event, Veeam Backup for Salesforce became general available. While I personally do not have experience with Salesforce (we use a different CSM at work), I’m sure there are multiple organizations eager to utilize this product.
One rather unique situation I’m in as a Vanguard is that I’m only one out of two customers in the program, as far as I know. Most Vanguards are working for larger Service Providers. This is not a bad thing at all since it adds a different perspective to the program. And coming from an SMB, I want to focus a bit more on the announcements that might apply more to customers. In particular, Veeam Backup & Replication v12 and Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, or VB365 v7.
V12 will be coming soon, and I believe it is the most significant update yet for Veeam B&R. I’ve been using the product for a while now; the features and improvements coming are mind-boggling.
Again, coming from the SMB world, I see many organizations not utilizing cloud storage with object lock or any hardened repositories. Backup servers and repositories are becoming (or are) primary targets for ransomware actors to ensure your backups are gone. V12 will make integration with cloud storage providers a breeze; no Linux or Pearl knowledge is required to build a hardened repository on-site. You still can do this of course, and they are a good amount of improvements in V12 as well, but if there are no internal resources available to build this out, you now have an easy alternative.
Another feature that I find really useful for administrators that don’t spend all day in Veeam is the best practice analyzer. It checks your configuration, and if something is not right will show you right there. Of course there are some limitations on what it can and can’t do, but this is a great starting point.
One feature I’m excited about is the VeeMover! I always found it a bit cumbersome when I had to re-balance a scale-out repository or move jobs to an entirely different repository. No more, VeeMover will simplify this tremendously.
And lastly, yes, v12 will have MFA for the console available. As organization shift to a policy of MFA for any administrative work, I’m very glad to see this feature coming into v12.
Some other tidbits of improvements:
There are many more great improvements coming in v12. All I can say spin up an instance and start playing with it once it is general available.
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v7 is coming as well. I’ve been a VBO user for many years; it was part of our initial Office 365 rollout.
At a high level, here are some of the improvements:
- Integration with VSPC & Veeam ONE
- Backup copy to any object storage
- Restore Portal enhancements
- Easier search in the VB365 console & Veeam Explorers
Some of the information is classified, so I can’t go into too much detail on this, but I believe you will be pleasantly surprised.
Lastly, a quick mention of Veeam Agents. I’ve been using Agents since the moment they became available. Mostly for physical workloads to protect them from infections and general failure. Part of the summit was “Fun field facts” where attendees presented various topics they find useful for sharing. I presented on how to integrate Veeam Agent into Windows bootloader, and backing up ESXi on Arm with Veeam. I will put this in another post in the near future–> Blogpost is up here.
All in all, it was a great event. Prague is a wonderful city, and I had some awesome food. Although I will say, the Apfelstrudel is better in Bavaria 😉
And, of course, I was able to jump on a scooter a couple of times!
A big shout out to Madi Cristi, Rick Vanover, and the entire event team for letting me participate in the event and organizing this monument task. From the hotel to the food and special events, everything was very well planned and executed.
Here is a sampling of other posts about this event from fellow Vanguards/Legends for your consideration:
- Luciano Patrao (Veeam 100 Summit 2022 Prague Recap – First Day)
- Luciano Patrao (Veeam 100 Summit 2022 Prague Recap – Second Day)
- Vladan Seget (Veeam 100 Summit Prague – My Czech Roots!!!)
- Al Rasheed (Veeam 100 Summit Recap)
- Jorge da la Cruz (Veeam 100 Summit, to Community and beyond)
- Ben Young (Vanny’s Historic Run Around Prague)
- Matt Crape (Knowing, understanding, and valuing your audience)
- Veeam Community Recap #94 (at the Veeam 100 Summit) w\ Rick, Madalina, Geoff, and Maurice Kevenaar
- Chris Childerhose Veeam 100 Summit Recap
If you want to learn more about Veeam Vanguard program, please check out the link here.
Madi Cristil and Rick Vanover were on a CTO Advisor video from the latest VMware Explore in Europe, where they talked about the value of community and why they fly out a bunch of us to Prague. Check it out here.
Looking forward to seeing what comes next!
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