Well, VeeamON 2024 in Ft. Lauderdale is officially over and like after all previous 5 I've been to, I'm reflecting on all that happened while there. For those unaware, this was Veeam's 10 year VeeamON Conference anniversary, and I must say…what a way to celebrate it with a BANG 
Opening Day General Session/Keynote
The "main" conference got underway not with Anand (Veeam CEO), but with a customer: Ft Lauderdale's CIO Tamecka McKay. She shared how the city used Veeam to recover from a rain disaster over a year ago. After she spoke, Anand shared some interesting numbers, one of which I'm proud to contribute to – "99.4% of questions posted on Veeam's Community sites/resources were answered by Veeam Influencers and the Veeam Community." WOW! What an impressive number! He also talked about "Data Resiliency", what this means, and how to achieve this with Veeam via 5 pillars -> Data Backup: using Veeam's various Backup options such as Backup From Storage Snapshots or Replication; Data Security: using tools such as their new Malware Detection Engine or Incident APIs, as well as Immutability; Data Recovery: using, for example, their Secure Restore; Data Freedom: the ability to use Veeam's portable data format to recover or move backup files to various hypervisor platforms or locations; and Data Intelligence: using AI such as the AI Assistant within VBR as well as within their threat protection system.
The real "BANG" of the Keynote came when none other than Anton Gostev appeared on stage, first time in I believe 5 years, to show off some upcoming Veeam VBR v13 goodness. Before I get to the real exciting news, I'll share some initial upcoming support announcements. As you all I'm sure are aware, Anton announced upcoming support for 2 hypervisors: Oracle Linux Virtual Manager (already GA) and Proxmox VE (coming in Q3 2024). He also shared M365 v8 will be released this year with significant backup time improvements with the use of multiple Proxies. Also, there will be upcoming support for MongoDB, adding to their ever-increasing support for various DB products. Microsoft EntraID will be supported as well, and the real good news for this is the fact you don't need to have a license for the M365 product. Rather, this will be natively supported within VBR. Nice!
Ok…now the greatest news of the 1st day, if not the whole Conference -> Veeam announced VBR will now be supported on Linux when they release VBR v13, scheduled for "sometime next year"!
Anton mentioned "flexibility" for this option for various customers and said they wanted to provide multiple install options – for smaller customers, an all-in-one appliance might be desired; for enterprises, a Linux OS installer may be the install route they want to go. There will also be a "hardened VBR server" with High Availability, which will only be available for the Linux OS VBR version. Anton did say a Windows installation will be retained "for the foreseeable" future. If I had to guess, I think there will come a time, like VMware did with vCenter Server, where both OS options will go away and Veeam will only support the Linux OS option; and further yet, there will be nothing but an appliance. But that, of course, is to be determined. Time will tell.
Sessions
Hidden Features
I attended quite a few Sessions throughout the event, but will only highlight a few here. One in particular I've liked the past couple years at VeeamON – Veeam Hidden Features by Fabian Kessler and Andreas Lesslhumer. One takeaway from this Session are a few "extra" things you can do not necessarily within the Console, but with Veeam Powershell. I'm sure you've seen the new Security and Compliance Analyzer (S&CA) which replaced, or more appropriately is an enhancement of, the former Best Practice Analyzer, in the Veeam Console. There are quite a few more security settings Veeam suggests you configure on your VBR server. And, it's a really time-consumming process to do. But, Veeam has made it much easier by creating a Powershell script to help get all your VBR server settings configured to achieve a bertter "score" in the S&CA. To download the script. go the this KB . Another S&CA option you may be unaware of…it now has the ability to be run on a schedule rather than just maually. Very cool!
Veeam also has a PoSH cmdlet they suggest to run to fine-tune PostgreSQL, as they never did fine-tuning upon its inception with v12. They also suggest to run the cmdlet any time you make hardware changes to the PSQL server (i.e. CPU, RAM), perform an upgrade, etc. The cmdlet name is: Set-VBRPSQLDatabaseServerLimits.
Lastly, did you know there was a custom backup file retention feature in VBR? I wasn't aware of it myself, but think it can come in handy for those requiring a little more flexibility with regards to retaining certain VMs... for example, Backup Copies, Exports, and VeeamZIPs. This is done by modifying a JSON file on the VBR server, located at: C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Backup/Config/Retention/AutodeleteRetention.json . Just add an "option" in the file (like below), then exit the Veeam Console and re-open, then you should see the custom retention period from the drop-down list.
First 100 Days of Veeam
I also attended another Session repeated from last year: The First 100 Days of Using Veeam by Matt Crape and Brad Parker. The cool thing about this session is they present a mock implementation scenario with design requirements and goals, and then walk through how they would go about implementing a solution. I thought it was well done as it provides a potential real world implementation scenario.
Veeam Hardened Repository ISO Update
Oh, and if you haven't heard, the Veeam Hardened Repository all-in-one ISO is getting a makeover! 
Of course, the ISO will still be DISA STIG (security) compliant, but probably the best part is it is now going to be on Rocky Linux instead of Ubuntu, making it obviously compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Many other exciting details were shared as well. Sadly, no release date was given. As we all know – it'll be ready when it's ready. 
Veeam Community
And lastly, what's a VeeamON without hearing from our very own Community Managers/Analysts 
The cool thing about their session was not only did they speak about all things Veeam (100) Community, they also made it interactive with those of us in attendance, asking some of us in the Veeam100 to provide our insights about the Veeam Community, and what makes each of the Community Programs (Vanguard, Legends, MVPs) unique. Great job Madi/Safiya!
Speaking Opportunity
And finally, probably the highlight of the VeeamON Conference for me this year – the Session I submitted earlier this year was approved, which provided me an opportunity I never got to experience before: speaking at a major Conference. I was honored to also have a great co-presenter,
Rasmus and I spoke on tools to use when considering "Implementing Veeam Components on Linux" in your backup environment. We spoke about some Linux tools and commands you should use when you begin embarking on your journey to implement Veeam components on Linux OS in your environment to make the process go smooth for you. We also showed a brief demo on Linux commands to run when needing to increase the size of "multipathed" Repository Volumes you have running on Linux. I hope the session attendees found it valuable to them. For me, speaking at a major conference provided me with yet another growth opportunity in my Community-engaging career. Thank you Veeam!
PARTY!
We of course ended the week's adventures by unwinding at the Wednesday evening party. There was a band playing various genres of music, along with an accompanied DJ. Food & drink was of course also provided. It was a great way to end a week of much information gathering and networking with fellow colleagues.
Summary
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the Session content. There were little to no "Community-based" sessions approved for VeeamON this year. A lot of us in the Veeam Community were a bit concerned Sessions would have too much of a "marketing spin" on them. Were there some like that? Of course..every Conference has them. But, more sessions than not had good technical-based content in them. This made for a really good event in my opinion.
Veeam didn't provide any details on where or when VeeamON will be next Spring, but I'm already looking forward to it!
Cheers!
