Simply Resilient Conversations
What does it take to build true cyber resilience?
In Simply Resilient Conversations Geoff Burke, Veeam Vanguard and Senior Technical Advisor at Object First, explores this question through engaging discussions with our ACES community members. Join us as we break down complex cybersecurity and data protection topics into accessible conversations that help IT professionals keep their production workloads running and their data safe!
Simply Resilient Conversations
Community Roots: Mastering Veeam Backup & Replication
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Welcome And Surprise Guests
SPEAKER_01Everybody know. Okay. Okay. No red light. That's okay. I think it's working. So hello folks and welcome to Simply Resilient Conversations. I didn't announce this one because some things it's better to be a surprise, like the old birthday cakes where people jump out. So this is the same type of thing. We've got today a hero from our recent past, we know very well, Chris Tilgerhost, but we also have Nicola Pejova, the head of the Veeam Vanguards, and Rick Vanover from Veeam, Mr. Community himself. Now, why have I gathered these people together? You should know this. And if you don't, you're gonna know it now. It's because Chris's book, which we talked about last time, the new release, a new edition came out. And guess what? Guess who also is involved in this book? Nicola and Rick. So, first of all, I'm certain you know all these people. If you don't, I don't know where you've been hiding, but you're gonna find out who they are now. Let's first start with introductions. Let's start with Nicola first. Nicola, please introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Jeff. And uh hey everyone. Uh, it's Nicola Pekova. I am uh senior community manager at uh Veeam for Veeam 100 community, and I've had the pleasure of knowing uh Chris Chalderhost, the author of the book for many years. So I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_01Okay, Rick Vanover. I don't think he needs an introduction, but why not do another one again?
SPEAKER_03Oh, gee, don't make me all blushy, Jeff. Hello, everyone. Uh Rick Vanover from Veeam. I'm on the product strategy team. I've uh in my 16th year at Veeam and known Jeff and Chris for quite a long time. And um I work alongside Nicola on our community operations, as well as other things. I do a lot of things, but I needed I needed a team. So I Nicola was the first person uh that we hired dedicated to the community. So that'll come back
Why A Fourth Edition Exists
SPEAKER_03around to what we talk about here in a bit.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and Chris, I know we had you on recently, but let's do a reminder.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, hey everyone, Chris Childerhose, uh Meme Vanguard, Meme Legend, Object First Ace, uh, many other things, uh, author of the book that we're gonna be discussing today, and just happy to be here talking about the book and community.
SPEAKER_01All right, so we've discussed this a bit, but I want to ask again. You wrote the book once. This kind of reminds me of marathons. You know, there's that saying one and done because it's so difficult. You wrote the book, but then you came back. Now, some people say either you're a glutton for punishment or you enjoy doing it. This is the fourth edition, I believe. Yes. Fourth edition. Okay, so you've done four editions of a book, right? So you obviously must like it, but also you invited Rick and Nicola to participate. So you can describe what happens, what why you came up with that idea. Did you just want to have these two huge, powerful community heroes on the label, or was it other reasons that we can find out now?
SPEAKER_02You know what? It was actually to be honest, it wasn't my idea. Nothing against Nicola and Rick, but it was it was packed that actually asked me, is there any way we can get some other people involved? And of course, I know Rick for a while. I thought of him, I thought, okay, maybe he'll want to do this, but depending on his wonderful life schedule when he works at Veeam, uh being so busy and stuff, but uh that's when I reached out to them. They said, yeah, sure. And uh Rick ended up writing one of the chapters for me. Nicola did the foreword in the book, and that's how it went.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that makes sense too, because I think from what I know of um uh publishing, there's always they're always trying to get a new angle. It's not that you know the material's bad or your author's gotten boring, it's just that you want an extra kind of like now that I'm in marketing, I understand this better. You want like new faces, new ideas, and whatnot. And this certainly was a really powerful one because what I particularly like about this, it's okay, we're talking technical, that's obvious, but really this is also tying in another big aspect of your biography and your brand, which is community. And so, okay, let's ask Nicola now. When uh Chris approached you to write this, what did you think at first? Did you think that maybe he had been at the doubler in Prague and had a few too many refreshments? Or what was your first impression? And uh, how did you why did you decide to do this?
SPEAKER_00Yes, so um I would have much more time if he would have asked me in Dubliner, you know, because not been that long notice uh that I have been asking for this activity, but uh I have not been hesitating for a long time because first there was not sure not really much time uh for deciding whether yes or not. And I was taking it as a pleasure, you know, to have this opportunity of uh uh having my hands on the fourth piece of uh Chris books because I have been following his path since the book one. So it makes me very proud as a community manager to see that our community members are um having uh such a you know long-term uh power, like a backup, because many people were warning Chris when he started to write the first book. Um, it's so much work, you know. You will see yourself when you will start writing that, that uh after first you know, edition you will be glad that you have finished and that's it. And he did not, and that's uh great example, you know, of uh his accomplishments and his efforts that he's putting into community contribution every day. So was a bit longer answer than you were asking me for, probably, but uh with more details.
SPEAKER_01By the way, we'll also underline the fact people say Dubliner, what is he in Dublin or is he Irish? Well, no, there's it the Veeam 100 have a meeting every year in
How Rick And Nicola Joined
SPEAKER_01different countries and and in Prague a number of times, and there's a bar there that a lot of the Veeam 100 like to go to, and so that's the kind of ongoing joke. Okay, Rick. So now up to you. So your your answer here. Chris is approaching you saying, Rick, I want you to write a book, and you say, sure, with my schedule, I have tons of time for this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so Jeff, a couple of points on this. One, uh, I'll be the first to say this. I think I may have told Chris this in the kind of the iterations. I forgot how much fun it was. Okay, because it's a lot of work, but there is some fun to it. And I've had the good fortune to write for I guess uh in in several different ways. Um, let's see, this one was with PACT with Chris. I did a chapter on Microsoft Press um on Windows 8. I wrote the Hyper-V chapter when that was Hyper-V was built into Windows. And then I did uh on O'Reilly, I did a technical review of a Windows Server 2012 or 16 book from Samara Lynn uh in New York City. And whether it's writing a chapter or those technical reviews, and don't let us forget to give a shout out to those folks. Uh Chris will put you on the hook for the full inventory of those folks. Yeah. Um for Ricatron to engage, contributing a chapter or like a fixed scope is the right way. Um, I do, you know the best way to explain my calendar and my my workload is like walking through a modern art museum. You got things all over the place and crazy shapes. That's my calendar. Okay, trying to find the um just the ability to focus and and allocate that time for it. But to to just really illustrate how much fun this is, I I was given Saturdays to this, you know. Uh one of the old executive uh you know coach uh pieces of advice they they they give is you know, you get a lot of work done on days that start with S. Right. Because you know, the most of the weekend uh the week you're aligning with stakeholders, meetings, and um, you know, thing and taking in things to do. Uh this was important to, you know, take one of the S days, right? So I I really prioritized this, did most of it on the dining room table. And I I truly forgot how much fun it was. But now, in the interest of just one other thing, I you know, at working for Veeam, we had kind of some thoughts that we need to really consider. Uh, for one, I told Chris, I can't take any royalty or payment, okay? Because that would be kind of, you know, you know, that's the dirty side hustle type stuff, right? It's the job to talk about the products, and I can't really go get paid on the side to do it again. But let me just say it this way people don't write books, uh technology books for the money. They they do it for the love of it in the end. And, you know, so I cleared it with our legal team. I said, look, you know, this guy, bang up guy, he knows this stuff really good. Uh I know he's gonna do a fantastic job. I've been offered an opportunity to collaborate on this book. And I, you know, it was a good idea to go in first and ask for permission. And I had a number of questions uh in-house legal, and I answered them all. And it's like, actually, I think it's a good idea because you'd give some validity to it, you'd give some credibility to it. And I took that back to Chris and then the editorial team, and then we activated our plan. And um one of the things I've done with a lot of the other Veeam 100 members was write the forward, you know, that kind of like inspirational first page. And like Nicolas Bonnet, for example, his books in France. And they even let me do it in English, so that was that's a real treat. Um, I've done it a few times for him. Maybe even one of your prior books, Chris. I might have even done it. I can't remember. I mean, I do a lot of them, so I I don't quite remember, but once we had kind of a green light, you know, the the little kid in me kicked in. And I was uh I don't know if I was exactly good on the schedule in terms of delivery dates. Uh let's just say chapter four may have been done after chapter 16 was done, but nonetheless, we got it done.
SPEAKER_01So that's that's excellent. And I I like the the the the good great work gets done on on the S days, which is unfortunate because that can take a lot of heat from the family, too. Um, so okay, so Chris, you worked before alone, and now you're working with two other people. What kind of challenge does that
Making Time To Write
SPEAKER_01bring? And and did you have to change your style, or uh was there anything different that really stuck out for you in this?
SPEAKER_02Not much really changed. I kept my style the way it was. I just did my chapters as I did them. I harassed Rick a little bit every now and then just to make sure, okay, where you sitting? Do you need me to help? Um at one point I thought maybe I might have to write most of that chapter and all those kinds of things. So but no, it was just it was just coordination as all it was. And the coordination actually was very, very easy.
SPEAKER_01So that's good to hear. Yeah, and I again the fact that you know Rick was giving us Saturdays for this. So if I was giving my Saturdays to write someone's book, I might have some trouble at home, so I can fully understand what happened. So Nicola, was this your first time ever doing something like this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was the first time for me.
SPEAKER_01And what so what was it like for you? This is you're good diving in. I mean, I know your background, I think university is linguistic related, I believe, and your English is fantastic. So you are a language person. I mean, if it was someone who was in mathematics, I could see this might be much more difficult. But what challenges did you find and and what would you recommend others who are doing this for the first time in such a way?
SPEAKER_00Uh I have tried to take it responsibly because I didn't want to write a bad foreword, you know. First one, so I wanted to make sure that I paid uh enough time and attention to like curate the text uh to the best uh possible uh form. So I have uh reached out to the author first because I didn't want to just write a you know foreword for the book without like previous interaction with him. So not that we would not be in touch uh outside of the book project, you know, but this was a specific task and it's been pretty challenging. Like, you know, uh Riggs's been giving Saturdays, he's been also replying during his uh PTO because, like he said, his busy uh schedule is uh tough to like align with the things when they come um you know for a longer period and they require so much uh time dedicated. And I was having the opposite, I was having pretty short like part of the book to be to be done by myself, but at the same time it was a pretty short notice because after I said yes, I was told it's going to be a few weeks, you know, that you are going to have. Then I found out that I have actually like exactly the week. Meanwhile, I was traveling to Seattle from Prague for our team meeting, you know, that we were having for all the following week. Uh so it there was the schedule that was not, you know, enabling me really like sit down on that, but we managed with crace and all the uh time zone differences and everything, uh, to have a call during that meeting in Seattle. And uh he has shared with me some information that I wanted to know, and as well, he has shared with me the examples of the previous uh four words that Rick you wrote. I confirmed that because I wanted to see some like uh examples of the previous ones to see how the good ones look like, you know. So I wanted to inspire myself by uh the better ones. So Rick was perfect uh choice. So I I after speaking with Chris, uh gathering this information, like understanding the the language or style or what should be mentioned in the in the foreword, I tried to combine you know, experience that Chris has uh within the Veeam community because it's been many years of his life that uh he's dedicating to community with his uh books, but also other participation in our activities that are ongoing for all the years. So uh I would say that I have done a set of activities to put it together. Um, and then I have been really glad that I have uh sent it to the publisher on time. So I because I just was stressed by you know being the one who's blocking the wheel to move. And so I was really relieved when I sent my forward, and uh it was accepted like without uh any further changes, only like adding uh you know the technical reviewers in there, which is totally legit. And I was also nicely surprised that one of those that I didn't know uh he's working on the book as well, was also the person that I knew, so it felt like a really community project from all the perspective.
SPEAKER_01Now that's that's interesting you mentioned that, and and I wanted to kind of focus in on this because you know it's no accident, the community starts with a C, right? And creativity does too. And my idea is that even for people who are not extroverts or are not who think they don't have creative abilities outside of just creating a backup job, the community helps develop these processes. And so you take someone who enters a community, and you I'm asking this because I'm certain that Rick and Nicole have seen this, who've entered the community, started to become productive, and then they kind of like a flower bloom or they grow and become stronger. Eventually, in this case, writing a book. And and Chris mentioned or uh Rick mentioned that there's others he's written forwards to. So that's what I wanted to kind of focus on now is do you think that community and everything that's involved in it translates into better creativity? And let's start with Rick.
SPEAKER_03Oh, 100%. Um I'll tell you part my own story and then land it to community in the sense of uh pizza trivia. What did Rick do before he worked at Veeam, right? Well, he worked at a bank, believe it or not, right? And wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, doing interviewing. You heard it here first, folks. Exactly. And but he didn't have hair. That was that's that's 20 years ago. But, anyways, um but really dig into the psychology. And I know a lot of you know, kind of our core historical audience knows who John Troyer is, who launched the VMware V Expert program. And he had really done a lot of not just running that program, but also consulting to other programs. And one of the things that they dug into is the psychology of why. Why would somebody go above and beyond and be extra? And it comes down to them wanting to have uh a bettering of themselves. I've seen plenty of examples of folks in the v100 progress through their careers much faster than they may have on their own uh trajectory. Uh, they may want to just have a uh just a differentiation. You know, you think about just the competitiveness that we all have to live in in the market. But what happens, Jeff, is that when you get so what we don't want is a bunch of people that are the same. We want a bunch of people that are together. And the thought here is if we are all together and doing something above and beyond and different and extra, there's this incredible cross-pollination that can happen in the sense of, well, hey, I've never done a book, but a chapter is an easy thing, not Rick, but maybe an individual, or I've never done a technical review of a book. I don't know if we get to the list of those folks, Chris. I don't know if they've ever done that before, right? That's actually something they're gonna go put on their resume. Hey, I helped did the I did the technical review for XYZ book. A couple years ago, we would do uh the Veeam Certified Engineer uh course credential. We would have Veeam 100 members validate the course outline and the and the content objectives. Is that real world? Does that land? And what would happen is those folks never are going to get that opportunity anywhere else. Forget if it's a Veeam credential, but just in general, helping shape, you know, a certification credential. They're putting that on their resume. And that type of stuff leads to other stuff and leads to you know the growth, right? And so you see these opportunities where an individual has the awareness to say this is an opportunity, and opportunity is the word, right? It's almost like, and Nikki and I work a lot on language for when I say language, like, hey person, you've uh achieved uh status for this year, and or you know, sometimes there's difficult conversations like you know, you're not really maximizing this opportunity, you know, you've got an opportunity to do these things, and and we see more opportunity for you to use it, things like that. And so the thought is those folks, and and they're you know, they're they're one in a thousand, they're one in a one in a big number.
How Community Builds Creativity
SPEAKER_03And when they when they activate, they're great. And then even within that, you'll see once in a generation type of people. Now, Chris, I'm not just saying this. You are a once in a generation type of person. You're your engagement level, you're beating me to my own community platform, you know? Everything I everything I go for, you've already been there and and such. And so, and there's a couple of them, like Ben Young was a phenomenal, and now he works for Veeam. And I when he left the program to go for his uh his opportunity, and then long story, we acquired that company, he's right back up in the game. But I told him, I said, Ben, you're you're a once-in-a-generation type of member. You know, you've got this tinkering ability um that pushes the products, right? So even within what we call the Veeam 100, there's even some really extreme examples within there that are uh a one in a thousand within that. So um just having that uh access to see these other folks, you'll see organic collaborations, you'll see um, first of all, camaraderie and friendship, like like none other. But yeah, there's a spark, Jeff. And what we try to do with our community engines is give fuel for that spark to grow.
SPEAKER_01I like that. That fuel for this that is perfect. And I think people who have been part of this community, especially have been in other communities, know that the Veeam community is special. I'm not just saying that. There's I've seen people grow in the Veeam community much more than in other communities. Not the other communities are bad, it's just that there's a real focus here, and there seems to be a real good, let's say, design in place. Whoever designed that, we won't talk about them. They're on this call right now. So, Chris, let's talk also about the benefits of this because I'm always interested in, or I put it this way, I'm always thinking of countering arguments of what value does this have business-wise? And my point of view has always been when it comes to community or any creative efforts, is that you are out of the box. You are creating interest which is original. I think this argument now is getting to be more important with the avalanche tsunami of AI stuff coming. Uh, because at the end of the day, I think with human beings, what's going to happen is people get bored and tired of monotonous things. And so anything that's different, any story that's different, is which is original, people like. They're attracted to it. So when you go and tell your employers, I'm gonna write a book, how do you argue for? How do you, let's say, advertise it? Just I'm taking into point that people might want to do something like this, but they're worried about going to my boss and say, Hey, I need like a few hours to write a book. No, you don't. What would you say?
SPEAKER_02I didn't go to my employer and ask. I just did it. Okay. Um went right to the chase. No, only be only because when I when I when I was doing this, what I was doing is I wasn't doing it this particular book, yes, I did during the day. Hopefully, we my boss doesn't listen to this podcast. Um but the previous ones, I would take like two hours out of my evening five days a week to write. I would go downstairs, have dinner with my family, and all that stuff, and then I would come back up to my office and I would sit and write. So it was just a matter of it's it's finding the time, trying to multitask, because you got your work, you got your family, you got your house chores, all those kinds of things. But eventually you get into a rhythm. And I got into a rhythm with these books, so it's like, okay, I can do a fourth one, it's not too hard, and all those kinds of things. Yes, AI is out there now, but the only thing I use AI for is just to check grammatical type things. I don't write books from AI because it doesn't convey me. I'd rather put things in my words and explain things because I use the product every day, I design the solution every day, all those kinds of things. So it's I know what people are looking for. So it's like, okay, here I can explain this in this way, and then hopefully people will understand it.
SPEAKER_01And when the business, too. I would imagine that having an author of a book relating to a product that this business is actually leveraging with customers can only be a big plus.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, for sure. Like they end up ordering some of the books to give out to the people in the in the company, and then they I don't know if they take them with them when they go to see customers or they're trying to pitch Veeam to or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, by the way, here this is one of our uh Well no, they they want to, Chris. I literally I've emailed Chris because like we gotta like get like an insert of a signed like page, and then I gotta Fed exit over to Nikki too. Like we got like three country uh signing going on, a signing conference that we're we might just have to go crazy at the Veeam on Tour Toronto, Chris. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't think that sounds like a great idea. And you know what? That that that I would prefer because then you get to see the reaction of the people as you're doing it, and then you give them the book and all those kinds of things. I don't mind doing signed cards to insert in there and then all of a sudden they're shaking it and oops, oh, what's this that fell out kind of thing out of the book? And oh, it's the author's signature, okay.
SPEAKER_01So, Nicola, this I mean, I don't think you had any problem convincing Rick to help you let you help on this book, but what would be your advice to people who are in situations where they have a day job, they're expected to perform, they're expected to produce. And some managers might see this as a kind of well, no, this is a self-glorification. This is just trying to make Chris or Rick or Nicole or Jeff, you know, look better or push their brand. How would you argue if you were in that situation with such a person?
SPEAKER_00I would definitely highlight the added value of this time, you know, spent on uh putting the book together because that requires uh time management uh done really carefully, especially when you are handling day-to-day job, uh, but like uh dedicating some time, you know, during your work time. This is definitely about like uh discussing this with your employer. Uh I believe that Chris's employer, as Chris just published, you know, the previous uh three books, uh and he still has the same one. I would say that uh they are kind of like counting with Chris uh dedicating his time on that. But I would advise everyone ask your employer first before you start doing that, just to make sure you are on the same line, you know, just that that conversation might just pop up and uh after the discussing that you have a green light. But I think it's important to be transparent, first of all. And then um I would like point out dedication um to the self-development and professional one as well, because by putting together all this information for people in a form that uh would make them understand, you know, how to maximize the potential of the tool that they are using in their day-to-day jobs, it would make them for the company um bigger experts, like more you know, in-depth experts, subject matter experts. And it's practically investment into the company uh value and the mental wealth of the company. So I would say, like, if you are investing to your people who can grow and develop themselves, especially in the pro knowing the product that uh is like covering your data and saving them in case that you are getting ransomware, I would just sell it like an investment in all the ways because like it's a personal development for the person and invest like a zero dollar investment for the company bringing the big value back long term.
SPEAKER_01That's a great answer. And I want to bring up something which is unique and specific to technology. And the reason I bring this up is when we think of authoring books, we think of you know people writing novels, fiction, or even books on philosophy, and there's kind of a linear trend, but you can go back and things change and ideas change, but you can go back and there's no real full stop. The problem with technology is if Chris, Rick, and Nicole had written a book on Veeam 1 or Fast SCP, the interest would be zero because we have moved on. So one thing I was thinking about is is it difficult to get enthusiastic when you know that this is a time-limited thing because technology is not standstill. What do you think about that, Rick?
SPEAKER_03Well, I did my best to directionally, and this is where AI can't, to Chris's point. I did my best to directionally guide the audience because especially at Veeam, we're on a journey. It's my chapter was around kind of the user interface, whether it be web interface or the Windows app. And 100% of the functionality is in the Windows, the console app. Directionally, the web UI will have parity, and that's a priority. And likewise, same thing, the Windows Veeam backup and replication versus the Linux Veeam software appliance, right? So it feels a lot for those who have been in the game for a while when VMware had that kind of in-between with the vCenter server app and the appliance and on Windows, then it's it's it's an industry analogy to that. So what I can't do is like DJ Setlist drop the whole roadmap up in the book, right? You know, you gotta pay for that. But uh, well, they did pay for the book, but I gotta, you know, the roadmap is used in different avenues, right? So I had to kind of guide people with directional comments, right? And that's you know, uh, I'm using my English in tricky ways, but the thought here is I don't want to ever mislead people, ever. You know? And what I can say about Veeam is that nothing is ever final, right? You know, we always reserve the right to kind of pivot or um change direction. But I want to everything I laid in there is, you know, what I feel to be kind of absolute truth in the sense of this is what you need to know now, and this is what you need to think about for the future. And what I can tell the audience is that's really good to balance that directional future stuff as things change, but that is also has to be tapered by what do I need right now today? And actually, more importantly, it's been wrong all this time. It's an absolute emergency to get things optimized and corrected. And so um, sideways shout out to Nico Stein, one of the other Veeam 100 members, he has a great story of how when he walked into his role,
Proving The Business Value
SPEAKER_03Veeam was misconfigured, right? And actually, it speaks to the flexibility that the product has where he could reconfigure it to the level and the configuration and the protection that he wanted. He didn't have to start over, he didn't have to buy anything, he just had to really, you know, get the house in order, as it were. And um, I do the do my best to kind of be directional and give people that most balanced perspective.
SPEAKER_01That's an excellent answer. And I think that's an underlying uh of quality when you take something which is not going to be dated. Yes, the technology might have changed, but some of the core ideas and philosophies will remain persistent. So, on that note, let's put people on the spot. That's always fun to do. Uh, but of course, we're not on video, so we can't see those facial reactions. It's kind of miss. Chris, you've been doing Veeam for a long time. You've written four books on Veeam. So, what is your favorite Veeam feature and why?
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. I would probably, you know what? It's it's kind of not a feature, it's the new appliance. Um, being able to move away from Windows, my employer's excited about that. Um, I've already run the conversion on four sites. Um I have many more to go, but it's been working out really well, and they're they're appreciative of that because it reduces our wonderful MS licensing costs and gets rid of all of that good stuff. But it's having that and the ability with like the auto-update feature in it and things like that, it stays up to date. Whereas in Windows, you have to manually run the update and get it up to the most current version or patch or whatever and and things like that. But that's that's probably my best the best thing that I like about it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so Nicola, I'm gonna ask a slightly different question. Not what your favorite feature of Veeam is, but what would you consider your favorite aspect of community creativity? So be it blogs, be it videos, webinars, and why.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I think it's a complex package of all of these, you know, because it's a different approach to each of them. Some of them are a bit like longer term. I like especially like I am more like a long uh distance runner rather than sprinter, you know, and uh I like the initiatives where you are like uh calling people to action to help us work on some initiative uh related, for example, to V13. We were doing the quotes, collecting quotes from the community. And then uh we were using them in different forms on our like Deme official channel. So they were quoted uh as a text. Some people did the videos, so it was great to see them being featured, you know, in different uh languages. And uh then I have created an article around it that is summarizing everything for people who are not familiar with this project, uh, just to get everything like served uh on one plate. So I like the I would say complexity of the projects that we are uh doing, that it's usually not only like single task, you know, for the people to write the question, like the article or the blog post, but it's usually connected to some other, you know, bigger picture. And that's the same with the community because community is never like uh only the individual itself divided, you know, from the rest of the group. It's always people who are having the connections in between themselves on a different level, and it doesn't have to be the initiative because what we've mentioned is the camaraderie within the community that really works outside of our uh environment, but uh people have really found their the lifelong friends that they are meeting in in their free time. So I would say that it's uh it's a white palette of the activities that uh I like doing videos. I like to do freestyle videos. That it's I would blame Rick for that, which is a good blaming, I say. But uh it's uh still taking me to the first summit in 2019. Uh we were on the welcoming reception on the rooftop with the sunset over the frag. And Rick came, I was so nervous, you know, because it was community uh only of vanguards back then. But uh I was still uh new and the community was meeting uh first time, you know, in in person. And Rick came to me and he has asked me, What do you think, Nicola, about like shooting a video like a recap? And I was like, Yeah, sure. Uh when you want to do it, uh now. Uh wait, wait, what? Yeah, yeah. And he was like, uh, you know, here's a banner, uh, here are vanguards, and that's all we need. So uh you you have a phone, and I'm like, yeah, let's let's do it. So I'm going to ask someone. And we were in the end shooting these like recap videos every day, you know, after all the agenda has wrapped up. And um this has not been something that we have been planned planning, but uh this is what I like the energy, the spirit that you are asking the people right away, you know, without previous preparation, like, hey guys, there's a challenge. Are you in? And like 95% of people uh are in, usually. So it's great that you have such also wide uh range of people to choose from when you need someone to work on different projects because you know, all the people have different, I would say, orientation when it comes to the project, and like uh they have different levels of expertise and of the experience with them. So it's great to have every time so many people to ask for cooperation.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I got a special question for Rick. Um, so I can see him shaking his head. That's the good thing about podcasts, you can't see. Recently, I've had to, I had the privilege of talking with people much higher up in the food chain than I've ever had to in the past. And one person said something which really struck me, and I'd never thought of that because I've never been that high up. Um, about community. And then the the the description was community allows me to see what's happening down below the C-suite level, to see what's happening among the real users, among the real people, those people who are up at three in the morning doing restores, who not only are saying thank you uh because they're paid for that, they're saying thank you. And I think Chris and I have been in those situations because it worked and your customer is happy and you're saying thank you, Veeam, for building this product. It's a feedback mechanism, which is extremely important. And it's a feedback mechanism where you hear the truth because no one in the community is being paid for, being paid for. Their response is not being paid by Veeam. They can honestly say, This did not work, this was okay. And because they're part of the community, they feel a commitment, I'd say almost like a family commitment, to tell the truth. Because the people you care about and the products you care about, you want them to know what works and what doesn't, because that will make them more successful. So, Chris, is that uh I'm sorry, uh Rick, do you think that statement's correct? And in your experience, have C-suite people seen it that way? Do they take this feedback? Do they value community for that reason, especially?
SPEAKER_03Uh yes, but I think you want a longer answer. So here's one way to say, I love your angle about the truth. One of the analogies, I'm I'm all about the analogies here, Jeff. One of the analogies I like to say is it's kind of like going to a restaurant and asking the staff who does the dishes what to order on the menu. Right, if you want the truth, right? You work backwards, you work backwards in the supply chain. And to that point, traveling from above the power line to the power line, and then below the power line, you will get this unfiltered reality. Right. And community, I'll be the first to say, and Nikki will back me up on this, that we actually value critics just as much as we value fans, because in the end, the critics want to make things better. And absolutely one hybrid on that. There had to have been a use case that we didn't think about. There had to have been a scenario, maybe a local government requirement for this has to be done this way and things like that. And so, yes, there is this unfiltered reality. Now, of course, there's another strategy. It's not just what you do. You either, you know, first of all, have knowledge of the product. So that's one of the things that are the what you have the knowledge of the product, you know, you advocate share uh as Veeam 100 members do, but it's also how you do it. It's the manner in which you do it, right? And that's that is the that's the golden combination,
Keeping A Tech Book Relevant
SPEAKER_03right? And that's the whole big difference, especially when you talk about criticism or you know, constructive criticism. It's the whole big difference between a reaction or a response, right? The manner in which uh constructive feedback is is rolled makes all the difference in the world. That's just life advice, honestly, not just community advice. And so, yes, the community is an absolute weather vane to the reality. And and I go so far to say that you know, Veeam's not unique in that. I think Reddit has really democracized some of that truth across the industry. I try to go into the Veeam Reddit every day, pipe in where I can. Um, even but even on like Veeam properties, like our community hub, you know, Chris answers a lot of questions there. Thank you so much for that, Chris. Um, that's also weather bane veined of sorts. Um but you know, the manner in which some of these dialogues happen, sometimes you know, folks give some consideration. Maybe like on a veme.com property isn't the right place to kind of question something. Maybe Reddit is, right? And so we have some members that engage there too. And you know, this much like Spiceworks, Reddit and Spiceworks, they can kind of get, uh I like to use the phrase uncomfortably anonymous. Okay. Uh so you know, but it's the manner in which you play, you know. Yeah, sure, you might be a smart person, you might have a good set of experience, but the manner in which you collaborate and try to either solve or make things better, that makes all the difference in the world. So, very long answer. What versus how? Ask the folks who do the dishes.
SPEAKER_01Those are my answers. That was perfect. Okay, I think we got time for one final question. So let's start with the hero of the hour, Chris. What are your plans going forward? Is there gonna be a fifth edition? Are you gonna branch out? Are you gonna write about other things, other technologies? Are you gonna quit your full-time job and just start writing? I'm that's a joke.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm not quitting my full-time job just to write. Um we'll see what the future holds. Um I'm always excited when a new version of Ian comes out, and that's what kind of drives me to do the books is okay, these features are in there now, so let's write the book, talk about them, explain it to the people, and get them on board with the new version so that they'll upgrade from like version 10 and go up to the latest version and things like that. But we'll have to wait and see. Um I've I've been able to do these books much quicker um every iteration that I go because I'm used to their formatting, I'm used to their templates, I'm used to their way of doing things and stuff, so it uh it doesn't take me very long to uh put a book together.
SPEAKER_01That's good to hear that you're gonna still still continue on. So Nicola.
SPEAKER_02And one and one other thing, a big shout out to the rev to the technical reviewers. Marcus, uh who's on the Veeam 100, was one of the one of the uh technical reviewers, and another gentleman, Aaron Stebbing. He did reviews on my previous books uh and stuff like that, so they asked him again to do it uh and whatnot, and his feedback's always fantastic. Same with Marcus. Marcus had a different uh view of his feedback versus Aaron. Aaron was reading it more towards people like. Like um that are not technical with Veeam, which was great. So it's like nice to get that feedback. And then Marcus's was I would get links to the help files, and no, this is wrong. This is what the help file says, so change your maximum, whatever, here or whatnot, which was which was also good too, because it's like, okay, I may have glanced over and missed something in the help. But, anyways, thank you to the reviewers.
SPEAKER_01I'm glad you mentioned that because building a book is a big job, and so you always want help. And none of us are perfect, so we always appreciate help. Nicola, is this gonna start a new career? Is this gonna be a new are maybe you want, you know what? Maybe there's an idea for a book. Write about the Veeam Vanguards.
SPEAKER_00That's a good one. Uh, I was not considering writing a book about Vanguards because at this moment uh my uh free time, like spare time after work is like uh taken all by my son. But maybe after a few years I might do some kind of wrap-up because it's going to be soon a decade uh that I've been uh working with Vanguard. So there are many stories, but I don't think that I'm starting a new career, you know, as a as a forward writer. Uh but whenever any community member, you know, uh puts something together and needs some kind of uh like summary or something, I'm always in for helping out because uh I this was mentioned here before. Um and I will mention it again, that it's like one of the most rewarding uh things and aspects of our work for me is that uh we are uh directly watching the you know development and blooming of people's uh careers and uh expertises and personalities. And we see the stories you know over the years, how people uh are evolving. And I am that makes me extremely proud about the community as a whole and also as it's uh individualistically so variable, and that we are keeping the quality bar so high for so many years because over the time that uh I've been at the program, uh it's been more than 20 uh vanguards or legends uh that have been becoming beamers and joining the green side. So showing this, you know, is just a perfect example and like uh confirmation for us that we are having the right people in there because the retention is practically 100%. Uh these people are not leaving, they are joining the positions where they are really making a real impact. And it's great that they are often working with the community. So uh I will be uh more focusing the time to continuing
Community Tells The Unfiltered Truth
SPEAKER_00and supporting this wheel. But uh, whenever there would be someone who would want me to uh dedicate my foreword to his piece, I am always here.
SPEAKER_01We'll we'll write that down. Now, Rick, you can't see this, folks, because this is a podcast, but Rick doesn't even really have to write a book because if you look at the background in his office, it is like the history of Veeam. I mean, you could do one of those history of Veeam and just take screenshots of of the background behind there. Uh, but on that idea, you know, you've seen it all. You you started the community, you've gone, as I can see, the posters Veeam 10, you've got the the 11 back there. The stuff that you've seen and the growth you've seen with Veeam is truly an incredible story. Have you ever thought about turning that into a either a movie or a book?
SPEAKER_03Well, so yeah, true. So I have been here 16 years. I have stuff even actually before I even started. There's like you know, a podcast, but I'm just gonna say it was from I want to say VMworld 2009 when all or 2007, all we had was virtualizate our virtualization management products. Veeam team, the home for virtualization management. Not just that, it's in Times New Roman font, you know, startup days. Um, yeah, I've got stuff. I I steal something everywhere I go. The only rule is if it's on the wall, I was there. Okay. Um, and and I love it. I absolutely love it. But you know, it it's kind of a nice it the folks call it the museum. Employees come in, you know, the panoramic with the phones. Uh, this actually used to be a conference room, and you know, we we we have a flexible work arrangement here in the Ohio Center, so I was able to kind of allocate more space, and it's kind of a unique use case for me. I do a lot of video, but what I've what I have kind of gotten into the mode of, and this sounds really crazy is I treat every day like it's my first day. I I know that just sounds weird, and you probably said I was gonna say like my last day, but I treat every day like it's my first day. I have this day one mentality going into everything. I'm curious, right? Um, we have our history, we have the things that got us there to where we are today. Uh but you know, when I look at Veeam, it's there's some several distinct, very different eras. And we're really right on the next as this year, we're really fully integrating across the security AI part of our portfolio. And make no mistake, you know, we're not leaving folks behind, we're we're giving folks new things and we're incorporating new audiences into these capabilities. And uh, there's some of the blue stuff up on the on the wall and around the room. You just gotta look close. But as time goes, you know, we're going to you know find people where they are. And the easiest way to explain it is, you know, Veeam's in the business of keeping good data safe from bad things, whether it's fire, flood, and blood, ransomware, or agents gone wild. You know, that's where we are today and where we're going. So I'm motivated every day to come in and just help folks get that. And whether it's a book, whether it's you know, my official duties, I'm in. And um, you know, I truly love what I do, and and I love the team I work with. I've told Nikki before, she's she's more like a sister than a coworker. And and the teams that we've built, we've invested in the community team. We now have four folks. That's incredible for the size of company we're at, you know, and management supports it. So we're um chugging on, and um yeah, man. Expect nothing but excellence from us going forward.
SPEAKER_01Well, I tell you right there, there's a title. Just the thing with Ricky is you can take some of the quotes and just a reality TV, whatever, agents gone wild. I think that would be a title of a great book where then security AI comes in and undoes all undoes all the things they do. I'm just simplifying it.
SPEAKER_03This is what I see, you know, because I'm a storyteller. My mom's dull, she wonders what exactly do you do, Ricky? Um, but it's more like that's the simplest way to explain it, you know. Okay, data and AI trust is the official story. But look, I got nothing but evidence in this room behind me that we have several messages over the years and it will change, right? But okay, I know we're running late. I gotta be quick here because I do have a call. But I'm on this fourth floor of the building. And here in the US, if you buy and sell a house, you go to one of those title agencies, and I can always see folks coming in to buy and sell a house, and that's on the sixth floor, and they'll get in the elevator, and I I will have push six, and they're like, How'd you know? And I'm like, Well, I've been in this building for four, 15 years, and then they'll look at my backpack or my coat and like what's the veam? And then we're on the second floor by this time. That's where it comes from. We keep good data safe from bad things: fire, flood, and blood, ransomware, and more. That's what I used to say. Now I've added agents gone wild. I'm just talking to people, that's what I do. That's where that came from. I walk out on the fourth floor and they got it.
SPEAKER_01That's great. So, final thing, folks, where can
What Comes Next And Where To Buy
SPEAKER_01we purchase this book, Chris?
SPEAKER_02Uh, you can get it on Packed, you can get it on Amazon. Those are the two main ones that I know about. Um, I haven't seen it pop up anywhere else. Um I know I have watched previous books pop up on other sites and said something to PAC and told them, hey, get them to pull that off there. But uh anyways, new worries.
SPEAKER_01And you used to worry only about data protection. Now you have to worry about your copyright rights.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, copyright laws now.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, folks, this has been a fantastic talk. I could go on all day long talking with all three of you, but then my boss might say, Jeff, what about the day job? Thank you very much, Chris. Congratulations. Rick, congratulations, Nicola. Congratulations, and I really hope this does really well. I heard it is doing really well. Talk to you next time, folks. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you. Have a great time.
SPEAKER_01Bye bye. All right, excellent.