Hi Everyone,

Today we have an extra special meet the architect. Fabian Kessler was also part of the inaugural class of Veeam Legends and like many from that group has seen his career sky rocket.

Known on the R&D forums as Mildur, he came to prominence by being one of the most, if not the most powerful R&D forums member ever. His answers were always to the point and highly accurate and many of us wondered whether or not he was truly some secret Veeam Agent whose mission was to light up the forums! In the end he came in from the cold so to speak and joined the mothership at Veeam. 

Joking aside his deep Veeam knowledge and ability to provide excellent answers on the R&D forums and the Veeam Community Hub made the act of hiring him a no brainer task for Veeam.

Geoff: Hi Fabian aka Mildur, it is great talking to you and I hope with this interview we can shed some light on who the hero of the R&D Forums and Veeam Hub is. 

How did you get started in IT?

Fabian: 

I began my professional IT career in January 2010. But before working in IT, I worked as a Geomatician (2002-2009), where part of my role involved updating official topographical maps of Switzerland.
While doing that on my daytime, I started to learn about IT topics after work. In 2006, I set up my first working Active Directory and Exchange Server 2003 in my parents' basement. These were my first steps in IT. 

In 2010 an opportunity came up for me to switch from the Geomatician department to the IT department within the company. 

Over the following years I took on technical responsibilities for data protection and mail services.

Geoff:  Wow, a Geomatician! I have interviewed a lot of people but that is a first. 

When did you first start working with Veeam software products?

Fabian: 

I hope I remember the year correctly I believe it was in 2017/2018, when I first used a Veeam product. It was Veeam Cloud Connect. I recall it was 9.0, and my first task was to update it to version 9.5. 

Then shortly after I had the opportunity to design and build up a new datacenter backup server for the hosted customers based on Veeam products. 

Geoff: Ok so now that we have broken the ice time to divulge some secrets 

Is it true that you were so good on the Veeam forums that Veeam decided to hire you?

Fabian:

I leave it to others to decide if I was "good" or "bad" 
What I can say is that my contributions to the Community Hub and Veeam R&D forum increased my visibility in the global data protection community.
When I received the first Veeam Legend email from Kseniya, I was both thrilled and shocked.

I never expected to get an invite to the Veeam Legend program and I was truly thankful for the opportunity to be a member of the first Veeam Legend program and to meet so many amazing people worldwide. Some of them have become personal friends outside of my worklife.

And because of the Veeam Legend program, I knew that my contribution for the community was helpful to others. So I continued to do so. All that helped me to get where I am today. 

 Geoff: As always truly smart people tend to be humble and your answer proves that rule once again.

What do you like best about Veeam Software? Is there any particular tool or function?

Fabian:  

What I like most about our products is the direction we are going with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and it’s version 8. Our new feature “proxy pools” and “Linux proxies” will help our service providers to easier scale out their service offerings. Customer with huge M365 tenants will also benefit from this features. 

Then there is another application I like to mention. It helped me a lot in my role as a Service Provider before I joined Veeam.
It’s the Veeam Service Provider Console (VSPC). Managing multiple customers is a challenge if you don’t have a centralized monitoring solution in place. When the Service Provider Console was released to be installed on an on-premise machines, it took not long for me to deploy and use it.
Since then, our VSPC team released many more features and functions. I hope every Service Provider is using it, because it’s free for registered VCSP and brings a lot of benefits to a Veeam Service Provider .

Geoff: I can amplify what you said about the Veeam Service Provider Console having worked with it a lot. It is a fantastic piece of software and Service Providers get it for free!

What do you see happening in the future with IT?

Fabian: 

I think we’ll see more products and solutions with AI integration, making things much easier for IT administrators.

But I’m also concerned that this development not only benefits the “good guys”. “Bad actors” might get access to powerful AI tools without restrictions.
Like with any technology, there will be both good and bad sides to it.

Geoff: I agree like every new technology we humans create, we find ways to use it and abuse it. 

Finally lets move over to the non IT areas of like.

What do you do in your spare time. You mentioned being a Geomatician which is fascinating, I have also heard a rumor that you like mountains. So what does Fabian do to relax?

Fabian: 

Those rumors are absolutely true.
For me there is nothing better and more relaxing than going to the mountains. After a work week only looking into a computer screen, I enjoy seeing the amazing views from a mountain peek.
And I always prefer to stay in mountain cabins over night. Even as a Solo hiker you don’t feel alone. There are always other people hiking Solo with similar interests, which leads to nice discussions in the evening at the hut. Sharing experiences about other hiking trips or just talk about other things. I’m already looking forward to my next hiking trips this summer and fall.

Geoff: Thank you Fabian and thank you for all of the help that you have provided to others with your great responses on both the R&D forums and the Veeam Community Hub!