After returning from a week in Miami for the VeeamON 2023 and a few days resting and busy at work, it is time to recap the event.
VeeamON 2023 in Miami was a premier Data Recovery and Data Protection conference that brought together industry leaders, IT professionals, experts, and of course, the Veeam100 members from around the globe. This event was an unparalleled opportunity to explore the latest trends, innovations, and strategies in data protection, management, and availability.
In this recap, we will take you through the key highlights and insightful takeaways from VeeamON 2023. I will provide a comprehensive overview of the impactful sessions, groundbreaking announcements, and thought-provoking discussions that shaped this exceptional event.
I will start this blog post as always in my event recaps. I go through the sessions and the personal and human contacts with my community.
Before I start the day’s chronology, let me provide a few words about this VeeamON 2023 Miami.
As always, VeeamON is always fantastic. A lot of good content and great sessions where we can learn from the top experts about features, best practices, security vs ransomware attacks, and also what is new and what new features Veeam will launch next. There was not much news this year regarding new features or versions because, during 2022 and 2023, Veeam had already launched many new versions and new features for different products. With the v12, most of the new features that were o pipeline features have already been launched. But there were a couple of new features announced.
Again, meeting all VeeamVanguards, Veeam Legends, Veeam MVP, and the rest of the #vCommunity was great talks, technical discussions, and excellent after-party meetings. For me, this year, there was not much fun after hours. There were no bar parties, for me, until dawn since it was a week when I was exhausted (yes, getting old for this stuff).
An initial keynote of VeeamON 2023 Miami resume.
– Keynote speeches from industry leaders, including Veeam CEO and senior executives from the industry.
– A range of technical sessions and workshops covering topics such as cloud connectivity, security, data recovery, and backup strategies.
– Hands-on labs and demos of the latest Veeam software updates and features.
– A partner expo showcasing new and innovative technologies from leading tech companies in the industry.
– Interactive breakout sessions and roundtable discussions with expert speakers and industry thought leaders.
– A community lounge where attendees could network and connect with their peers and participate in fun activities like trivia contests and games
Week detailed
Sunday 21st.
The arrival
After a long and tiring trip, I arrived in Miami Sunday 21st.
I had my first beer on US soil while waiting for my connecting flight from Atlanta to Miami.
I arrive on Sunday around 21:00, check-in, and then meet some guys in the Hotel bar.
Monday 22nd – Day 1
The first day did not have many sessions to attend, as to register and do some certifications or labs in LabWarz.
On the first day, I didn’t attend many sessions.
- Kubernetes & Kasten K10 Workshop.
This was a 3h workshop session was presented by:
- Michael Cade – Veeam Global Field CTO
- Matthew Bator – Veeam Principal Enablement Kasten by Veeam.
This was a day zero event where attendees would get hands-on and learn some of the fundamentals of Kubernetes and Kasten K10. It was a workshop-style session, where attendees could use their own laptop and walk through getting a Kubernetes cluster up and running with K10 on top and protecting some applications within the Kasten cluster.
You can watch this session HERE.
Next is the list of all the sessions that I attended.
Tuesday 23rd – Day 2
On the second day, we started with the General Session. There was not much stuff to announce this year since Veeam has launched several versions and features of different products in the last six months.
In the General Session, one special mention to the Veeam 100(Veeam Vanguard, Veeam Legends, and Veeam MVP)). The first time I saw this happen, it showed Veeam Community’s importance to Veeam.
You can watch the full General Session HERE.
Build a Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) Offering at No Extra Cost With Backblaze and Veeam
This was one of the sessions that I unfortunately missed. I was doing some community service in the Veeam Community booth. Unfortunately, there is no video online from the session, only some documentation.
This session was presented by:
- Rasmus Haslund – Principal Technologist & VMCT Program Manager, Veeam
- Elton Carneiro – Sr. Director of Partnerships, Backblaze
- Gregory Tellone – CEO, Continuity Centers
You can check more information about this session HERE.
A Quick Start Guide to AWS, Azure & Google Cloud Backup
Key points on this session:
- More organizations are looking to their backup admin to ensure their cloud-hosted services are backed up and protected.
- Veeam Backup & Replication makes it easy to get started with backing up AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.
- With native protection for each unique IaaS and PaaS offering, Veeam makes configuring and deploying backups via the cloud marketplaces or the Veeam Backup & Replication console simple.
- The Veeam Universal License offers entitlement for cloud workloads alongside the data center and edge devices already being backed up.
- Using Veeam for cloud backup helps organizations prepare for any scenario and stay ahead of cloud resiliency expectations.
This session was presented by:
- Rick Vanover – Senior Director, Product Strategy | Office of the CTO, Veeam
- Julia Furst Morgado – Product Strategy Technologist, Veeam
You can check more information about this session HERE.
Wednesday 24th – Day 3
I attended several sessions on the event’s 3rd day and last day.
5 Levels of Unbreakable Cyber Resiliency with Veeam V12 & Scality
Key points on this session:
- Data immutability with Amazon S3 Object Lock
- Data encryption
- Distributed erasure coding
- Core immutable storage
- Geo-replication
This session was presented by:
- Candida Valois – Field CTO for the Americas, Scality
- Wally MacDermid – Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Scality
After 10/15m, unfortunately, I walk out from this one. I hate doing this, but I’m not fond of marketing sessions. You go to a session thinking it is a good technical session, and then it is 80/90% marketing. Those sessions should clearly state that they are marketing/product and not technical.
You can check more information about this session HERE.
All Demo Session for Veeam Hardened Repository
This was a great and fun session. All because of my famous poker face photo.
One of the most straightforward methods to accomplish on-premises immutability is through the Veeam Hardened Repository. Rick and Hannes from Veeam demonstrated how to set up an Ubuntu computer to use the Veeam Hardened Repository. This session goes through the how-to for the Hardened Repository from a base operating system through backups on disk with immutable file characteristics.
This session was presented by:
- Rick Vanover – Senior Director, Product Strategy | Office of the CTO, Veeam
- Hannes Kasparick – Principal Analyst, Veeam
- Christoph Meyer – Junior Application Security Engineer, Veeam
You can check more information about this session HERE.
A-Z Automation Journey with Veeam’s Automation Desk
This was another great session presented by my friends Maurice and Joe.
Maurice and Joe, in this session, presented the wonderful world of automation or wow to use automation with Veeam and build scripts, repositories, etc.
This session was presented by:
- Maurice Kevenaar – System Engineer, Info.nl
- Joe Houghes – Senior Solutions Architect, Pure Storage, Inc
You can check more information about this session HERE.
A final note on the sessions: Unfortunately, I could not attend all that I wanted to. Mainly because I was doing some Community booth service, and unfortunately, some were not recorded.
Veeam Community Hub
On the 23rd and 24th, I was in the Veeam Community Hub booth giving attendees support and explaining about the Veeam Community. It was a great initiative, and I liked talking with the attendees and explaining about this fantastic group Veeam Community is.
Since this initiative was the first time, it needs some improvements and more publicity to the public, and maybe a more visible spot to have the Veeam community Hub booth. Let us hope next time is better. There is now space for improvements.
And my famous photo inside the Veeam Community with my biggest smile.
Besides the sessions and Veeam community gatherings, there were also a couple of late parties.
Wasabi sponsored one, and it was for all Veeam Community Group (Veeam 100). It was a nice party, where we could have drinks, talk to everyone, etc.
On the evening of the last day, the most famous VeeamON Party. I, unfortunately, did not join.
Went with my friends and Chris Childerhose and their families to a dinner in a Taco place. The dinner took longer than expected, but even though I missed the party, it was worth it. Because we also had a great time between friends and their families.
So this year, I don’t have any crazy party photos 🙂
Thursday is when almost everyone is going back. I stayed until Friday and added some sightseeing in Miami Beach.
Official Recaps
We can check all sessions in VeeamON 2023 Miami on this GitHub page. Ben Young built this page and did a great job here. By collecting all the session information and put all in one place.
Here is the official VeeamON 2023: A Community Recap. Check it out.
Official On-Demand Catalog HERE.
Other recaps from the Veeam Community:
- VeeamON 2023 Recap – ()
- VeeamON 2023 in Miami – Recap (Nico Stein)
- VeeamON 2023 Recap – Miami
- VeeamON 2023 – Event Review (Chris Childerhose)
- My VeeamON 2023 Experience (Julia Furst Morgado)
- VeeamOn 2023 | Miami | Vlog (Julia Furst Morgado)
To finalize, VeeamON was the perfect example of #community, friendship & knowledge sharing. As we can see in this recap, Veeam Vanguards and Legends presented many sessions. This is another proof of the quality of this great group, which is #Veeam 100.
Overall, VeeamON 2023 in Miami was a fantastic opportunity for IT professionals and Veeam users to learn about the latest trends and best practices in data recovery and backup and connect with a vibrant and engaged community of like-minded individuals.
I want to finish this recap by thanking your Rick Vanover, Madalina Cristil, Safiya Mohamed, and Nikola Pejková(this year in the background) for the invitation to this great event and also all the team that makes this Veeam Community one of the best(if not the best) in the Tech world. Thank You all!
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