I’ve been fortunate enough to be a member of the Veeam Vanguard program since 2017; an advocacy program run by Veeam consisting of like-minded individuals who are passionate about all things Veeam, many of whom I consider as friends. I always look forward to time spent with the group as the knowledge and experience shared within has always been invaluable to me. Hopefully, I have many more years in the Vanguard program to come, and I urge anyone with a passion for Veeam to apply for the program which is expected to open in late 2019. 

One of many excellent perks that come with the program is attending the Vanguard Summit, for the second year in a row the summit was held in Prague. While it takes around 24 hours to travel from my home town of Brisbane to Prague, it’s well worth it. Prague is an amazing location, vastly different in so many ways compared to what this simple Australian is used to back home.

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One of the reasons why the Vanguard Summit is held in the Czech Republic is because Veeam’s main Research and Development (R&D) Centre is located in Prague, making it the prime location for getting the Veeam R&D team and Vanguards in the same room. Anton Gostev, Alec King, Dmitry Popov, Pavel Tide, Nikita Skestakov, Oleg Patrakov and Mike Resseler all made appearances and presented on their areas of expertise.

The content covered during the summit included Linux integration, enhancements for service providers, Cloud Tier Copy, NAS backup and more. One of my favourite sessions was the Continuous Data Protection (CDP) content covered by Anthony Spiteri, it’s quite clear just how much effort the R&D team at Veeam has put into this feature, with Veeam closely working with VMware to get the most out of the VAIO APIs leveraged by CDP.

The most popular session, however, was the R&D ‘Ask Me Anything’ session with Anton, Alec, Dmitry and Pavel. While the information shared in that session is under an NDA, I will say that I’m pleased with the direction Veeam is heading. They’re listening to feedback and implementing changes wherever possible to improve.

Vanny Vanguard made numerous appearances at the summit, either sharing a pivo (beer) with fellow Vannies or perched at the front of the room on the podium. If you ever see Vanny at a conference, be sure to grab a selfie.

The Vanguard program expanded again in 2019 with several new members joining, with Craig Dalrymple welcoming everyone in with a drink. It’s great to see Veeam continue to support the Veeam community by bringing together bloggers, casters, customers and partners to interact with Veeam R&D.

Wrapping up, the 2019 Veeam Vanguard Summit was another fantastic event. Hopefully, I can make the next one.