Welcome to my final recap of virtual VeeamON! On day two, I continued to attend cloud and security sessions. After the first day, it was clear that data resilience is top of mind whether we were discussing protecting and restoring cloud-hosted technologies or the security precautions to reduce ransomware attacks. Without ensuring data is protected on all platforms, it is much harder for an organization to be resilient and recover from a cyberattack; and Veeam has been enhancing its products to do just that.
The morning started with another interesting keynote, “Hands-On With the Latest Veeam Innovation and Updates From Our Partners” hosted by Veeam’s Chief Product Officer, Anton Gostev. Since my first day with Veeam, it’s been evident that our partners drive our business and innovation, so it was exciting to watch a whole session featuring them. In particular, this keynote highlighted three Veeam partners: Lenovo, AWS, and 11:11 Systems.
Lenovo’s Executive Vice President Kirk Skaugen discussed Lenovo’s growth and their focus on Smarter AI for All. Lenovo is going beyond the perception that they’re exclusively a PC company by incorporating an AI personal digital assistant into products. This AI can automate routine tasks and troubleshooting, freeing up time for users to focus on more creative, open-ended work. That led into the exciting announcement that Lenovo’s TruScale Backup with Veeam is now available. It provides a managed solution for data protection and recovery as a service, enhancing the services offered for users.
The keynote also included Paul Magan, AWS Director of Product Management and Dante Orsini, 11:11 Systems’ Chief Strategy Officer. Paul talked about how Veeam and AWS are complimentary because AWS focuses on storage fundamentals; and the most valuable storage is secure, scalable, and durable like Veeam’s. With Veeam Backup to Amazon S3, durability is increased because AWS mitigates durability threats within the storage layer of the system. Dante Orsini then came onstage to share what Veeam is doing with 11:11 Systems. 11:11 Systems is Veeam’s top global managed infrastructure services provider and works with Veeam because Veeam provides the resiliency 11:11 needs.
This session wrapped up with several Veeam product demos by members of the Product Strategy Team. The demos included Proxmox VE with Anthony Spiteri, MongoDB backup with Emilee Tellez, Salesforce data management with Andrey Zhelezko, Microsoft EntraID security with Michael Cade, and Microsoft 365 with Karinne Bessette. Each demo really showed how Veeam’s products are complementary to so many others we use in everyday business, and how they can become more secure and reslient. Be sure to check the demos out around the 22:00 mark of the keynote video to see these products in action.
Following the keynote, I attended “Experience Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365”. Edward Watson of Product Marketing was back to lead the session. He started by talking about how organizations are shifting more and more data to the cloud, meaning backups also shift. Veeam Data Cloud is based on Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and a solution Veeam has been running for over seven years. As data shifts, Veeam Data Cloud can manage its protection. I learned that there are three ways to protect Microsoft 365 with Veeam: backup software (Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365), backup service (Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365), and Managed Services (Veeam service providers). These services offer intuitive and informative dashboards along with granular access to finer controls so that users can identify and mitigate issues efficiently.
I concluded the day with “Best Practices in Incident Response” with the CEO of Coveware by Veeam, Bill Siegel. Coveware by Veeam provides incident response and proactive preparation, and has three core competencies: data aggregation, financial operations, and technical expertise. He reminded us that organizations fall to their level of preparation when it comes to incident response. Coveware by Veeam’s offerings are comprehensive; and Bill shared their incident response offerings. They offer best practice preparation to help reduce the likelihood of a successful ransomware attack. In the unfortunate event of an attack, Coveware by Veeam provides attack detection, analysis, and containment. Bill told us that the longest part of a ransomware attack is often the eradication phase because it’s crucial for a safe recovery but there are high chances of reinfection. Finally, they will assist in the recovery of data, any financial transactions with attackers, and a post-incident analysis reduce risk further in the future.
This was my second time attending VeeamON; and both experiences have been virtual. To remain engaged in a virtual conference, I’ve had to develop some tricks. I treat them like in-person events, taking time to prepare myself and my supplies ahead of time, take notes during sessions, and chat with others in the community between them like I would in a conference hallway. I also made sure to take breaks to give my mind time to process what I had learned. The nice thing about attending virtually was that I could use the break time to walk my corgis; and I do some of my best thinking when I’m out walking.
I’ll leave you with a tip I’ve picked up while attending virtual conferences – take advantage of the post-session recordings, slide decks, and other content. It can be hard to absorb so much material when you’re not fully immersed like you would be in person. The nice thing is that if you miss something you can always pause and rewatch videos, a trick I’ve used several times. If you did miss anything at VeeamON 2024, don’t forget you can view sessions on demand until July 15, and find lots more great content on Veeam’s YouTube channel.
