Community

After some delays on my end (primarily due to a trip to the UK … not that I am complaining), the second SouthWest Ontario Veeam Users Group is in the books. By all accounts, it was a great success. Attendance was somewhere around 50 folks, the feedback was great, and the company was fantastic. As a bit of background, we ended up having about twice as many folks as we originally anticipated from when I started planning this in June. It got to the point where we had to close registration - an interesting problem to have! Given that, the venue that we chose wasn’t quite sized as well as we would have liked. The main issue at hand was some audio problems, but we didn’t let that get in the way. ...

2015 was my first VMworld and it ended up leaving quite an impression on me. Prior to arriving, I read a lot of tips and advice for newbies such as myself. One of the big tips was a comfy pair of shoes … and I have to say that was good advice. After the week was done I looked at my Fitbit stats and found that I did something like 80KM of walking! ...

I am very excited to announce that the next Southwest Ontario Veeam User Group (SWOVUG) has been booked for August 18th, 2016. Based on the attendance at the last meeting, most of the attendees came from the Greater Toronto Area. With that as a consideration, the next meeting will be held at: Rib Eye Jack’s Ale House 6531 Mississauga Rd Mississauga ON L5N1A6 Phone: 905.820.6300 Time: 11:30 - 2:30 ...

Between work and planning my next Southwest Ontario Veeam User Group (SWOVUG) meeting, blogging has been tough lately. The good news is I have about a dozen notes of varying detail on things that I need to do / blog about. So expect a slew of content soon. In the meantime, I had a great chat yesterday about getting a sponsor lined up for my next SWOVUG meeting. Nothing is set in stone, but I am aiming for mid-August, pre-VMWorld. Once we confirm the date and location, I’ll be sure to post more details, but it is shaping to be a great event. The tricky thing about sponsorship for a user group is ensuring they (the sponsors) are relevant to the subject matter. In this case, I’ve found a Veeam Elite Alliance Partner who is excited to help out a community event. I’m looking forward to what they’ll bring to the event … more details to follow soon. ...

As some of you may recall, there was a little bit of a hub bub recently regarding ‘Making VMUG Great Again’; the crux of the issue came down to getting users more involved, particularly on the presenting side. You can read my thoughts on it here, along with some comments that folks left. Shortly after publishing that post I was contacted by an organizer for the upcoming VMUG Virtual Event and was invited to present a short community session. Well, it was time to put my money where my mouth was, so I accepted (along with the fact that I saw I was listed on the schedule). Side Note: Feel free to join me Tuesday, May 17th at 4:00 CT for my session: Make Your Backups Work For You. ...

Recently there has been some talk on Twitter about ‘Making VMUG Great Again’. Along with that, there have been a couple of great blog posts by Alastair Cooke and Eric Siebert, which I recommend you read. I’ve been following the conversation, albeit usually a good 12 hours or so late. https://twitter.com/DemitasseNZ/status/719651965383213056 I wanted to add my $.02 to the topic, but I don’t think Twitter is a great medium for this (largely due to me ‘missing’ the conversations). As a recent first-time co-presenter I was excited to finally be part of a presentation. I have been attending VMUG UserCons for years, and local user group meetings when possible. I have always wanted to contribute back, but I never have until recently. So what changed? In short, I was invited by Rick Vanover to co-present his session. I eagerly accepted. ...

I received some very welcome news in my inbox yesterday as I returned from lunch. I was delighted and thrilled to learn that I had been accepted into the Veeam Vanguard program for 2016. So what is the Vanguard program? According to Google, Vanguard has three definitions: a group of people leading the way in new developments or ideas; a position at the forefront of new developments or ideas; the foremost part of an advancing army or naval force. Going by the third point, it sounds pretty risky (hence the need for shelter). I don’t believe there were any casualties with the 2015 members. With that in mind, I’ll assume that Veeam is using the first two points as a reference. ...

So the first Southwest Ontario Veeam User Group meeting is in the bag. A big thank you to everyone that came out. Also, a big thank you to all the support that I have received from Veeam. In particular Paula Melvin, David Sayavong, and Bob Scott. I wanted to post a quick recap of the event as there were some folks who let me know ahead of time that they could not make it. In no particular order (largely due to my poor memory), a few of the topics we covered were: ...

Veeam TOVMUG 2016 Today was the annual Toronto VMUG UserCon. I believe it is the largest VMUG event in the Southern Ontario area. This year I opted to stay over in Toronto last night for two reasons: What is typically a 1-hour drive would be closer to 3 during rush hour and I was asked to co-host the Veeam session, so I didn’t want to be late. It also turned out to be a great decision given how bad the weather was. ...

Just a quick post: registration is now open for the inaugural Southwest Ontario Veeam User Group meeting on Thursday, March 3rd 2016. You can register for the event here: https://go.veeam.com/user-groups.html I have some basic details in my previous post, but if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to hit me up on Twitter ( @MattThatITGuy), by email (matt AT 42u.ca) or via a comment on this post.