One of the highlights of the Veeam Vanguard Program is the Veeam 100 Summit which is held annually and this year was hosted in Berlin, Germany. Attended by members of both the wider Veeam 100 and the Veeam Product Management & Strategy teams, it is a great opportunity to meet with peers and build relationships. In addition, the event includes great content across Veeam’s product set with exclusive access to upcoming features and a look into what the future looks like from a product roadmap perspective.
This was the first time the event was held in Berlin and with this also being my first year in the programme I went in with an open mind, not knowing what to expect. There was however a lot of hype in the community building up the Summit and so I knew it was to be something special.
Arriving a couple of days before proceedings kicked off gave me some welcome respite from travelling to meet up with some of the Veeam community as well as taking the opportunity to do some sightseeing around the city.
Day 0
The day before the Summit begins included registration, SWAG collection and a welcome reception. I was very impressed with the quality of the SWAG products I received! This year marked the start of a new trophy design not just for me, but everyone in the programme – I’m loving the Jenga vibes!
Day 1
The first day of the Summit was packed full of invaluable content, including updates around the Veeam Data Platform and Veeam Data Cloud products as well as an insightful session from Coveware around real-world field observations. A lot of the session content presented here is under NDA and unfortunately can’t be shared at this time.
One of my personal highlights from the content was around the capabilities both VBR V12.3 and V13 will soon bring to the table. I plan on making a separate blog post about this topic very soon so watch this space…
Concluding the first day was the Dalrymple Toast (a long running tradition at the Summit) where everyone raises a glass of your preferred tipple and toasts to the group.
Day 2
The next day included breakout sessions throughout the course of the day. These sessions had something for everyone and covered a wide range of updates across most of Veeam’s portfolio:
- VCSP for VDP and VDC
- Hardening Repository ISO
- VRO
- Veeam Kasten for Kubernetes
- Veeam Backup for Saleforce
- Entra ID Backup
- Veeam Backup for Public Cloud
- PowerShell Deep Dive
The end of day 2 was concluded with a fantastic party at a German Brewery & Restaurant. With exclusive access to the venue, this was another great opportunity to network in a more relaxed setting.
Day 3
The final day of the Summit included another session in the morning followed by a top secret “Ask Me Anything” session with the Veeam employees to bring things to a close.
Wrap Up
Thank you to everyone involved in the organising and running of the event – including Rick Vanover, Nikola Pejková, Safiya Mohamed, and Madalina Cristil. From the location to the venue and all the content, everything was spot on! I can’t emphasise enough what an amazing experience it was. Getting to meet with fellow V100 members in person and forge relationships was awesome and further solidifies my decision in becoming a Vanguard.
And as they say in Deutschland… Prost!
I’ll end with a few photos taken from around Berlin.
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