I’ve written before of the value I get from attending events, there’s always something to learn, be it strategic insight, technical information, or just a chance to meet someone new via a chat about a common topic, all of these things have value, sometimes big, sometimes small.
However, there are so many events and in reality we can’t attend them all, time, cost, and balancing demands of the day job, all make it impossible to attend everything you may want to, which is why increasingly the ability to join these events virtually has become a valuable option, be it via live streamed keynotes, catching up on-demand or increasingly via virtual conference.
I’m not sure that many people are aware of virtual conferences, but I’ve attended a couple in the past and they have worked really well, so I was pleased to see Veeam also delivering once such event with VeeamON Virtual on December 5th.
The protection and management of our data is, of course, a key topic for pretty much everybody. Ensuring it’s available, secure, protected and managed is a crucial element in the strategic planning for most of the CIO’s I speak with, whether driven by security concerns, regulation or future plans to extract value from data via analytics, then ensuring our datasets are in a fit healthy state is very important.
Why does this make this Veeam event interesting? The world of data protection is changing rapidly, as rapidly as the changing demands we are putting on our data and ensuring that we keep up with the changes that industry leaders like Veeam are making both technically and strategically, should be a core part of our education.
Making this kind of information accessible is very helpful and these virtual conferences are a great way of providing that access. What then, can we expect from VeeamON virtual that would encourage you to invest a proportion of your day in this conference?
The event has something to offer everyone, three distinct tracks providing differing levels of information. The strategic track includes sessions looking at 2019 industry trends and updates on Veeam’s Intelligent data management strategy, presented by their leadership team.
The technical track offers some great content, including a session covering the key elements of Backup and Replication Update 4 as well as a look at one of my favourite Veeam tools, Availability Orchestrator, a tool designed to help fully automate the complexities of a DR strategy, including testing and documentation.
Of course, no technical discussion is complete without looking at the impact of cloud, the cloud track explores Veeam’s capabilities around protection of AWS workloads as well as an update on their backup for Office365 product.
As with most conferences their value can often be found outside of the main presentations, and a virtual conference is no different, with an online chat community, where all attendees can chat in virtual “lounges” with Veeam staff, industry experts and of course other Veeam users, to share ideas, ask questions and maybe develop a new friendship!
The amount of interesting innovation in the data management/protection space makes it a fascinating part of the technology industry and Veeam are certainly one of its leading innovators.
The way we use and want to use our data puts huge demands on the data strategies we have in place to meet our business needs, so ensuring that we are aware of industry changes and trends has to be a high priority for any strategic IT decision maker or IT pro and if you can hear from one of the industry’s leading innovators from the comfort of your own chair via a virtual conference then it probably makes sense to do it.
If you’re responsible for ensuring your data management strategy continues to evolve to meet the ever-changing demands placed upon your data then book December the 5th in your diary, check out the sessions that catch your attention (Pro Tip you don’t have to do them all!) and settle down and hear from a wide range of industry leaders on both strategic and technical topics and understand how the world of data management is changing and how it may affect you.
You can find out more about the event, its speakers and agenda right here
Techstringy 