Veeam

Earlier this year I wrote a few posts ( here, here, and here) where I collected a bunch Veeam Repository Best Practices; the purpose of those posts were somewhat two-fold at the time: a) I needed something to present at my first SWOVUG meeting, and b) I desperately needed a new repository at work. Despite being several months later, I still seem to be getting questions about what repository I went with and how I like. I figure if I at least blog about it I can point future questions here. ...

Hands-down, one of the new features I was most excited about with Veeam’s Next Big Thing announcement was the Office 365 integration. I know I’m not alone in this one either, as doing a quick Google for terms like ‘Veeam Office 365’ shows that this has been a demand from customers for a while now. To be specific, Veeam is introducing a backup product that will protect your hosted Exchange Online email. ...

Veeam’s ‘Next Big Thing’ announcement did take some flack as far as how ‘corporate’ it was to start things off. To their credit, I did receive a survey within a couple of days asking me to review the event, and there were a lot of questions focusing on the content. I think that their overall vision may have been lost due to the fact that folks got bored with the ‘business stuff’ and just took the product announcements at face value. ...

VMWorld 2016 is in the books and now it’s time to decompress. This was my second VMWorld and my first one in Las Vegas, as well as my first time being in Las Vegas. Pros and Cons to SFO vs LAS, but at the end of the day I think I prefer Vegas. It is better suited for large conferences and rooms can be quite cheap, unlike SFO which only has Moscone Center and expensive hotels. Either way, VMWorld 2017 will be back at Mandalay Bay. The downside is that it is ridiculously hot. ...

Today Veeam held their ‘Next Big Thing’ event, and it was chock full of information. There was a lot of background and business info to get things going (not uncommon), but the product announcements did start flowing. So, what was actually announced? Veeam Availability Platform for the Hybrid Cloud One of the big points covered was more of a road map as to where Veeam is going. Looking at the image presented, it is clear that Veeam has big plans that span across both on and off premises. The plans include both private partners, in the form of service providers, as well as public partners, such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...