Hi Everybody,
This week we are talking to Veeam Vanguard, Veeam Legend Chris Childerhose.
Geoff: How did you get started in IT and later into working with Data Protection?
Chris:
I was always a fan of computers, so I decided once I got to College to take a course in Information Systems. Now, mind you, everything I learned in that 3-year program I did not use when I got out as I am more self-taught, but it is what started my path into the IT realm. I worked with other backup software, but it wasn't until I got a job as a Consultant that I started working with Veeam, and that was the beginning of my journey into Data Protection. I have used it since then and have been able to become very proficient with it, including being an architect for my company. It is a path that I don't regret going down as it has led me to where I am today including the Vanguard/Legend programs as well as others.
Geoff: I know you also have authored a book about Veeam as well. Can you tell us about that? How did you come up with the idea? How hard was that? and probably most importantly How were you able to see it through to the end despite full time work and family?
Chris:
Yes I have actually authored three books on Veeam. I was approached by Packt Publishing some time back to write my first book for v10 and thought long about doing so as it would be a tremendous undertaking. After thinking it over I took the plunge and worked on a table of contents with topics which was then approved. This began my journey with my first book which took just over 6 months or so to write as I had to get used to the templates for chapters, working with editors and how they do revisions, etc. The idea itself was not hard as I have many years of experience with Veeam and putting things together was not difficult. The first book I have to say was the hardest due to it taking the most time and effort. I spent many nights for a couple hours after dinner writing pages in chapters until the book was completed. My family understood and supported me which was a great thing. I also at times depending on work schedule did some writing during the day too - shhh don't tell anyone. However once the fruits of my labor were done it was nice to receive a copy of the first edition for free and see it start selling. This lead to a second and third edition which did not take as long as the first, but took some time to complete. It has been a great journey seeing the books sell and how much they made with the v11 book doing the best so far. The royalties don't hurt either seeing those come in.
Geoff: Interesting. So it seems to me, from what you are saying, is that it is essential to have a "system". This probably applies to learning as well. Setting aside a certain time daily for performing incremental progress. You touched on writing second and third editions of the book. This then brings on my next question, how do you keep up with the changes in Veeam with every new release? The Veeam User guides are now enormous. Do you re-read them to check for changes? Or just go over the What's new document? I think this question is especially important to future architects as one has to remain "in the know" so to speak otherwise you become out of date but that is easier said than done with a full time job, family and of course the essential downtime.
Chris:
Well to keep up with the changes I take a few approaches and the first being installing the new versions to get hands on. I tend to learn more with hands on, but it is always good to read the user guides even though they are enormous now. I mainly look for changes in them though as most of the information for certain things remains the same. The What's New document is the main one, however, that I use when it came to the second and third editions of the books as it allowed me to focus and create new chapters on many of the new features or combine a few in to a chapter. Learning is something we need to keep on top of in the IT realm especially with Veeam so that is why I work hard to get hands on and learn every new feature even if I don't use it.
Geoff: What would be your advice to others about how best to go about this?
Chris:
We tend to be very conservative and wait at least one month or more before implementing a new release into Production. Allowing for upgrade testing, documentation updates, etc., is essential to ensure no breaking changes. We tended to rush out releases, and that came back to haunt us, so now I take the cautious approach to ensure testing is done. My best advice is to test, test, test - and deploy the new release in a lab or testing environment so you can go through upgrade and deployment testing. Update your documentation while you do this with new instructions, details, screenshots, etc. so that when the time comes to update Production you are ready.
Geoff: One question that I like to ask every Veeam Architect and can be a tricky one to answer is, what is your favorite Veeam feature and what is the most revolutionary Veeam feature in your opinion if you have separate opinions on both?
Chris:
Yes, that is definitely one of the harder questions to answer as there are so many features, but if I were to pick one, it would be the VeeaMover, as it allows you to move backups between repositories while keeping current space savings from both ReFS/XFS which helps saving space. The most revolutionary feature, I think, is the addition of malware scanning within the Veeam product when doing backups. Malware and security threats are more prevalent now compared to years past and having the ability to scan your backups and then have Veeam report potential detections that you are able to look at further allows for ensuring your backups are clean and able to restore without any potential issues. I am sure this feature will expand in coming releases to add more advanced features.
Geoff: Excellent choices. Ok on a final note, we like to always ask the experts what their predictions for the future are? Always a gamble but what do you think awaits the world of IT and specifically Data Protection in the years to come?
Chris:
I see Security becoming top of mind now and in to the future with the way we see alerts recently. I believe the Data Protection team will cross over and include some components of security as well in the job role as that will be an integral part of keeping data safe. I see Data Protection companies like Veeam building more ways to prevent security breaches like Ransomware with things like the recent scanning and Yara rules. This will only evolve in the years to come and possibly be integrated into a SoC, where things can be monitored more closely. IT will evolve in the cloud more, but I think most companies will remain in some sort of Hybrid mode, keeping some data either on-premise or in a data center they manage or an MSP manages for them. Coming from the MSP realm, I believe business will continuously grow for them with more and more customers wanting to move their data to a secure location over the traditional cloud providers.
