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Inside the Veeam Community: Legends, Vanguards & User Groups with Madi and Safiya
20 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of the Rebel Devs Podcast, hosts Tom May and Jonah May pull back the curtain on the world of Veeam community programs with special guests Madi and Safiya from Veeam’s Product Strategy Team.
From the fast-paced world of Veeam Legends to the long-standing prestige of the Vanguard Program, Maddie and Safiya share what makes these communities thrive, how they’re evolving, and why both technical pros and everyday users benefit from being involved.
The conversation dives into:
- How Legends and Vanguards differ — and where they’re starting to overlap
- The surprising amount of work it takes to keep a Legend badge
- Why employers should value and support community involvement
- The role of Veeam User Groups in local and global networking
- Real-world examples of how community collaboration has solved urgent technical problems
- The unique culture, mentorship, and career opportunities these programs create
Whether you’re curious about joining, want to understand the benefits, or just love stories from the front lines of IT, this episode offers a candid, inside look at one of the industry’s most active technical communities.
Key Takeaways
- Legends work harder than you think: Frequent, high-value contributions keep them in the program.
- Vanguards influence product evolution: Early access to betas and direct feedback to product teams.
- Community saves time and money: Real-world fixes from peers can be faster than formal support channels.
- User groups are gold: In-person and virtual events connect engineers, partners, and end users for deep technical dives.
- It’s about people, not just products: The Veeam community blends mentorship, shared knowledge, and long-term professional growth.
Links & Resources
- Different Dev – differentdev.com
- CyberFortress – cyberfortress.com
- Veeam Community Hub – community.veeam.com
- Learn about the Veeam Vanguard Program – veeam.com/vanguard
- Explore Veeam User Groups – community.veeam.com/user-groups-98
Sponsors
This episode is brought to you by:
- Different Dev – Helping organizations define, implement, and monitor RTO & RPO requirements with Veeam Professional Services.
- CyberFortress – Your trusted partner in immutable, secure data protection.
Call to Action
Enjoyed this conversation? Subscribe to the Rebel Devs Podcast on your favorite platform, leave us a review, and share the episode with someone who’s passionate about tech communities.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Rebel Devs Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Rebel Devs podcast, a show that challenges conventional thinking in the tech industry. Each episode features conversations with solutionists who have taken unconventional approaches to problem solving, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in their respective fields.
Meet the Hosts: Tom and Maddie
00:00:28
Speaker
Join the devolution. Hey, Rebel Devs listeners. My name is Tom May, one of your hosts for this chaotic little podcast we have. As always always, my partner in crime, Jonah May.
00:00:38
Speaker
Jonah May, what's going on today? It's cold and rainy here. That's what's going on. no Cold and rainy in Texas. It's some of the tornadoes that Northeast is getting in.
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, hopefully you'll stay safe in there. If we see your camera feed go off, hopefully it's not spinning as it does by any means. yeah That would just be absolutely weird.
Understanding Veeam Community: Vanguard and Legends Programs
00:01:00
Speaker
um Today we're going to talk a little bit about Veeam Community, and it's a common question that Jonah and I get as vanguards and being involved with the hackathon and into the Veeam ecosystem.
00:01:11
Speaker
Often people will ask, well, how do you become a vanguard? What is a vanguard? We see these different badges. And so we've brought on two experts today in this world. We have Maddie and Sophia from Veeam.
00:01:22
Speaker
So I'm going to introduce, I'll go with Maddie first. Maddie, welcome. Tell us about you and your journey here with Veeam. Hello, Tom, and hello, Jonah. First of all, thank you for having me to your podcast.
00:01:36
Speaker
It's great to be here. I think we tried it a few times until we managed to record this. So great to finally be able to do it. To your point, Jonah, the weather is not better in here. It's been moody for days. so yeah, yay to that.
00:01:54
Speaker
um Yeah, few things about myself. um I am a Lennina Cristil based in Bucharest in Romania, ah far away from all of you guys, you all in the US.
00:02:08
Speaker
um I've been working for Veeam for about three years now. I'm in the product strategy team and I'm working mainly on the community operations and strategy um dealing with Community Hub and the Veeam user groups and of course the Veeam 100 program that we are going to talk about today. So yeah, that would be in few words.
00:02:39
Speaker
There we go. Very cool. And we love the community program. Jonah's been in it a little bit longer than me, but I don't know. it's a It's been an amazing journey. I never really put much value in it before, honestly, until I became a member just because community was weird as I was coming up through IT. We avoided such things unless we were in IRC chat channels and whatnot. But clearly things have grown over the years and I'm a dinosaur. But we do have another person here too. Sophia, good morning or afternoon or whatever time everybody's listening.
Veeam Community Roles: Sophia and Maddie's Perspectives
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, good morning from here. i'm in Columbus, Ohio. Hello, everyone. My name is Safiya. um My title is community analyst. I've been with Veeam for a little under two and a half years now, um like Maddie and Nicola, who's also on the team working with all things Veeam community operations, our community hub, our Veeam 100 program, Veeam user groups, which take up a lot of my time personally. So yeah, i'm looking forward to getting into it today.
00:03:41
Speaker
No, that's absolutely awesome. And so um I would say let's start with the Vanguard program because I'm a little biased and think it's the best, but maybe you have different opinions. We'll leave the best for last, but why don't we tee off a little bit with, ah how about the Veeam Legends? tell us Tell us about that. I'm going to throw it to both of you all.
00:04:02
Speaker
ah Yeah, sure. So Veeam Legends, actually, yeah, you are biased, but I think the order was correct. in the sense that Veeam Vanguard was the first program, advocacy program that, ah you know, the product strategy started at Veeam. So you are not wrong with that, but if you want, we can start with the legends.
00:04:25
Speaker
Legends is really in the middle, if you think about, because we started a program in 2020, actually beginning of because the community hub was started uh, at the end 2020.
00:04:42
Speaker
Um, so, you know, we had, we came up with this idea of having a, a hub, a Veeam community hub platform where our users, our, um, Veeam, um, top, top technical experts and, uh, Veeam employees and all Veeam users come together and discuss, uh, Veeam products and, uh, you know, just, um,
00:05:08
Speaker
can ask questions and they can blog about you know like different topics and they can come up with cool projects and so on and so forth, trying to ah bring everyone together and centralize a little bit things when it comes to Veeam community. So we thought because we saw like, hey, there are a lot of Veeam fans that are super active on our community platforms because we also consider R&D a community platform, right? R&D forum. So we thought, why don't we just also start another program on top of the Vanguard's program and call it Legends.
Legends Program: Recognition and Scoring System
00:05:54
Speaker
And that's going to be for the the people that are contributing and helping the community via community ah properties. So this is how we came up with with the Legends program. So Legends program is part of the a bigger program, the Veeam 100, together with Vanguard and MVPs that we are going to talk about um later on.
00:06:19
Speaker
And um as I said, they are just people that are like top technical experts that are part of you know the Veeam environment, meaning partners or customers um that um are contributing at the community hub and R&D forums and they are helping the rest of the community.
00:06:41
Speaker
um And we are recognizing them via um getting them in the Legends program. um There are two annual intakes. One is in February, the other one is in August.
00:06:55
Speaker
um So in this six months between the intakes, they gather points And based on that points, but not only points, because obviously you you can get points by liking or just commenting with a thank you or I don't know, something that is great as engagement, but it doesn't necessarily bring value to the ah community. So we are also looking in the the value of the the content and the value of the engagement. So that's about Veeam Legends in few words.
00:07:36
Speaker
I like the legends, especially some of the content up there with between the VMCE study halls and different things that you can go up there and take a look that, you know, I wouldn't really think of when I think of the Veeam forums, it kind of goes back to the days of posting things of problems and seeing some of the R and D people up there, some of ah top answer people. So now that the legend badges are there, it's been nice to see it go from, Hey, this person wrote a lot to,
00:08:04
Speaker
hey, this person's really a content creator up there. I think that's been a nice pivot in the last year or so. um Sophia, with Beam Legends, what's your take on it all? I know that Maddie gave us a real deep dive there, which is awesome. She definitely did.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, i can't probably describe it more. i would say, i mean, the Legends, like you mentioned, it's kind of started um and this smaller group, these people who were kind of just chatting around the hub, but it became such a bigger program now where some of these people are now becoming vanguards, which we'll touch on later, full-on blown bloggers.
00:08:42
Speaker
YouTubers talking about like a Jeff Burke type podcaster. So it's become such a big thing and only what, four years now, um which is incredible, has been incredible to see the transition, just reading back on how the program has grown since.
00:08:58
Speaker
It is crazy that you're right about everybody growing in all of their roles and becoming in. ah I mean, a little bit of my Vanguard background, I didn't even know what a Vanguard was going back to VIMON probably 10 years ago. It was just this kind of weird group that you heard about, but you didn't know.
00:09:16
Speaker
It was like, what are these people? And somebody said to me one time, you should be one of those. And I was like, whatever. And no idea of what it was. Like, I just need to do my job and whatnot. And that's cute. And I miss not getting involved in earlier and coming into the program later.
00:09:34
Speaker
Jonah, you've
Experiences with Vanguard: Jonah's Insights
00:09:35
Speaker
been a little bit. longer and touch a couple areas into the community. um What's your experience with the Legends? Because you're up on those forums a bit more than I am, all of it.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah. um Not quite active enough there to also you know be a Legend and a Vanguard like a handful of people, but it's been you know nice to see the community grow. i think I came in right around or right before the Legends were started. you know Came into the Vanguard program just on the tail end of the pandemic. you know Missed my first couple Vmons because they were virtual only because of the pandemic.
00:10:10
Speaker
And then came back, came into the vanguards, I think right around the time they did the first in-person summit after the pandemic again. And, you know, it's been really nice and very fun having extra people in the group, you know, bringing in the Veeam MVPs and the legends, and even just kind of getting some perspectives outside of what you see in the vanguards, because not everyone in the vanguard program works for a Veeam partner or a service provider, but I think a good number of us do.
00:10:38
Speaker
And I think it's almost a opposite proportion for the legends where there's a couple of people who work for beam partners but it's a lot more community oriented people or end users from the beam perspective no i think that's i think that's very true um as we look at it you're right i think a lot of the vanguards that i've known have always worked very tightly with beam and those legends coming up but i'm going to be a little bit more honest here and maybe the vanguards will get mad at me i think the legends have to work harder sometimes i mean those guys are cranking out content so much just to recertify twice a year so you know don't change our research on on our vanguards we're definitely not asking that i mean us cool uh podcasters and bloggers you know we have to put out some stuff too but
00:11:27
Speaker
I'll tell you, I look at some of those names you see up in the legends, ah Jeff Burke, Chris Childer House, Shane. Those guys are just machines when it comes to content. I i really do not understand how they function in their jobs sometimes because I don't think they sleep. I'm thoroughly convinced they must caffeinate up, work all day, write all night, post all night, and just keep going about it.
00:11:52
Speaker
And ah I'm excited when I put a but ah forum post up. I'm like, look, I put something up and maybe one of those guys will see it and I get so excited. So it's it's a it's an awesome program. That's for sure. Yeah, your point, Tom, I think you are actually right. And we actually had the bunch of conversations around that. And ah Yes, because basically you have to produce, um you know, a lot of content to get your points, but it also has to be valuable in order, you know, to um to be able to make it to the next intake. So I do believe while the Vanguard, it's just like one year intake, um you apply in December, January, and then
00:12:43
Speaker
you kind of you can sleep the whole year. um um I mean saying that, I know our vanguards are not sleeping throughout the year, they are producing content, they are doing a lot of amazing things.
00:12:57
Speaker
But I do think it's more difficult to keep your legend status than to keep your vanguard status. um ah And that's why i feel like so many times, you know, a legend would be like, okay, but I'm going to apply now for a Vanguard because, you know, it's just, I'm going to be one year of Vanguard rather than have to, you know, work for another six months to be back in the legends program. So
Maintaining Legend Status: Challenges and Community Interaction
00:13:24
Speaker
yeah, um that's true.
00:13:26
Speaker
I have to. They're all, yeah. And they're also answering questions to add on to just the content creation. I mean, there will be a question posted and five minutes later, like you mentioned, the Chris, the Shades will already have an answer for them. And it's it's crazy. Like, I don't know what kind of machine they have to always just be consistently on the hub while also working their nine to five.
00:13:48
Speaker
I still question how they get to the the content so quickly. But yeah, it's it's definitely a lot of effort to be intaked into the Legend program. and We appreciate all of them, what they do. we We get, because a lot of it is on Beam properties, like we mentioned, the hub, the R&D forums. For the hub, we use this um platform called Gainsight.
00:14:09
Speaker
And every year they give us some statistics on what has been done with their community. And majority of our questions are answered by non-employees that are using the hub. It's by mostly the legends who are helping these people, basically being a support desk in itself.
00:14:27
Speaker
So definitely a valuable resource that does not go underappreciated. I think the power in the legends also is and I'll kind of explain the Veeam support experience.
00:14:41
Speaker
And I think some of the listeners have been through this before. Kind of the cycle of Veeam support tickets looks something along the lines of open ticket, pull some logs. If you're smart enough to pull the logs, always pull the logs and just put them in there because they're going to ask you anyway.
00:14:56
Speaker
So just do it. You go up there and then you kind of get somebody jumping into a support case that is very just targeted, if you will. you'll You'll sometimes get these answers. They're like, well, this is happening.
00:15:09
Speaker
Go ahead and take an active full. And if you're not experienced with Veeam, you'll go ahead and click it and you think it'll work. But depending on your configurations, when you're moving to cloud providers, S3, wherever,
00:15:20
Speaker
kind of This active of full touches everywhere that the sun touches, and it has massive ripples. When you're into those forums, interestingly enough, and you get some of these legends, they're coming from the field, some being employees, some end users out there, and they've gone through these things. And so they have a little bit more of ah battle story, if you will. they're They're tried, they're true. They're like, well, wait, I remember that one time that they told me i better get out there and put up an active full. And it didn't solve the problem where it did. But then we had six weeks of syncing up data.
00:15:55
Speaker
When you get into these names up there, I'm always curious and I always click in to see who they are and what they've been answering to see. Is this a path that I want to follow? And for the most part, it really is.
00:16:07
Speaker
And you'll get that greater insight. And it's even more powerful, I think, is when you get one legend answering, and then another person is kind of, it's almost like the old doctor room scenario in the 1950s TV show, where it's like doctor concurring with doctor.
00:16:21
Speaker
And it's just like, yes, you should do this. And then the next person jumps in and they're, hey, you should do this. I agree. I've seen this. And you just get that whole conversation almost in real time around it.
00:16:32
Speaker
um I would say those guys that are Veeam partners like even myself, the stronger Veeam partners, I think value the community programs because they know what we get out of it. But it also sharpens us as employees as well. And the credibility of our brands around Veeam. When it comes to regular end users, I'm always surprised that their employers do give them the ability to focus in so much because I always wonder, do they show value in there.
00:17:03
Speaker
And that's a question that i' I'll often get from people is, how can you get my employer to support me doing this more? So, Jonan, you've been in this quite a bit. You've worked for multiple employers. You've had Vanguard across all of them.
00:17:18
Speaker
What values do these programs bring to the employers of the world? I mean, a big one is, you know, we get exclusive meetings with some of the product management team and in some cases, early access to betas.
00:17:33
Speaker
So especially, you know, being on the sales engineering and product architecture teams at my company, it's very beneficial for us because I play around in those bits and I can almost begin start to start formulating some go-to-market strategies as we see new features coming up in a version 13 or 14 or whatever.
Benefits of the Vanguard Program
00:17:53
Speaker
No, that's definitely helpful. I know myself from an engineering side, when we start seeing the landscape of the product, it's not that we can get out there and say, ah, secret sauce, guess what? You know, Veeam is going to offer teleportation in Veeam 13. So, you know, don't worry about SD-WAN anymore. But as we start seeing changes to the data, and I think as we speak to some of the product teams, we see some of the architecture behind it.
00:18:18
Speaker
And you understand, hey, we're going to move from this type of database to this database. And then as you're starting to architect solutions, you kind of start laying those framework into your existing design methodologies, knowing that the future could hold new things.
00:18:33
Speaker
We may not know where a product exactly goes, but we can see different movements. my One of my experiences with this, I think, was around Office 365, M365, whatever flavor it was called back in the day. You know, we were on jet databases. We were attaching storage. We were having jam-ups.
00:18:51
Speaker
over the course of trying to bring on large customers. Being in the Vanguard programs, we were able to speak to some of these product development teams, get real-time feedback, and it helped Veen get past the, we were labbing this somewhere to, here was a service provider bringing on big groups, and we were able to extend out.
00:19:12
Speaker
Equally so, as we watched pivots on the databases, we saw well Jet to SQL. We saw On-Prem to S3. And then I remember S3 was probably the first thing around the Vandergaard program that I dealt with that really made a difference where I didn't know where Veeam was going with it.
00:19:32
Speaker
But as we talked more and more in the community, we learned it had more capabilities around it. And it started thinking about things like people will laugh at me. God's honest truth, when I'm designing out customers today, I never even write to repositories anymore. I'm always every repository is automatically in a sober, even if it's a one to one, knowing that there's additional features in those sobers, which I may never turn on.
00:19:58
Speaker
But I remember there was a time where actually had to convert a regular repository to a server, sober, write a script, do all these crazy things behind it to get some functionality of an offload somewhere. And more and more things were moving that direction.
00:20:13
Speaker
And it was this kind of battle with the customer. Do we spend the extra time in engineering to over-engineer. And coming out of the Vanguard program, I couldn't say at the time, well, did you know that Veeam's secretly doing whatever?
00:20:25
Speaker
But I knew, hey, I've spoken to Veeam people. I've spoken to other experts, peers, and they're doing these things. And there's a lot of benefit. And the cool part is if there could be something you customer need in the future that doesn't even exist, but my gut tells me it's going to be in this realm.
00:20:43
Speaker
Before the community programs, Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever been able to navigate that. um And that's kind of a little bit of the the community that I like in there.
00:20:57
Speaker
um Moving more into the Vanguard, I guess we can kind of shift in. For me, I told everybody at the beginning that I had never really been into the Vanguard program. It was this weird group of people.
00:21:09
Speaker
Well, um At the time, the service provider I was working, I was in a CIO role. So still technical, but not as hands on. At that point, I knew that we really needed to do it. And so started nominating other people to be a part of it. And actually, Jonah, you were the first nominee we had back in the day. And I think in the Vanguard program, we have a unique status that we're the only father son Vanguards out there, which is ah claim to fame. But Jonah was there, what, two years before me, I think.
00:21:42
Speaker
And I remember Jonah would come out of these meetings all fired up and excited to be a part of it. And ah it was really exciting. But we knew that Jonah was kind of this savant, high-level working Veeam guy. He would always find all these interesting things. And then we ah put up Steven New for a nomination, and we had our second Vanguard, which was really, really amazing. And ah that was kind of a little bit exciting for me, was seeing the growth of Jonah and Steven.
00:22:11
Speaker
When I looked at Jonah, it was a very technical deep dive, Stephen being technical as well. But I knew that you know personalities are different. And I watched the shift with Stephen also.
00:22:22
Speaker
So I don't know if you all are aware, but I would say one of the benefits you have to your program is when you fly with like-minded people, those skills rub off on you.
00:22:33
Speaker
And when you walk into some of these vanguards, I mean, these same sorts of folks, when I talked about not sleeping, I mean, have you all seen the other designations that these community folks have?
00:22:43
Speaker
I mean, their resumes are amazing. What V experts we have Cisco champions in there. Yeah. and my peace yeah yeah Oh my goodness. It's absolutely crazy. So vanguards, can you help kind of break down the difference? I mean, what's the difference between legend? We said content forums.
00:23:09
Speaker
scoring. I mean, these poor guys have a report card, right? Like, it's so bad. It's like, here's your progress report. Did I make it? I mean, we do as vanguards too, but really what's the shift because vanguard was first and it's moved a little bit. What would you say the difference with the vanguard is?
00:23:27
Speaker
think now the programs are getting closer though.
Comparing Legends and Vanguard Programs: Differences and Similarities
00:23:31
Speaker
And now when we think legends and vanguard, you know, because you get a lot of the vanguards that are also ah very active at the community hub lately. you know ah ah the beginning, when we started the community hub and the legends program, there was a brutal difference. you know It was like these guys from their legend program and us, we are vanguard, the first um that were in the beam advocacy.
00:24:04
Speaker
program so now the programs are really coming together and since 2022 since i started and i worked with um together with rick and we thought about it we were like okay how can we bring the worlds together because this is very important you know you can't just work on different islands so In the past few years, this is really what we try to do. And I think we kind of got there.
00:24:33
Speaker
So now when we think legends, yes, it is about the their um activity at the properties like ah community hub and R&D forums.
00:24:44
Speaker
But we also, you know, many of them, they also have their own blogs. Many of them, they have some other, you know, um podcasts or... a but their own properties where they are active as well.
00:24:57
Speaker
And many times they also um go and speak at different events. So And they are sharing Veeam content on social media and they are Veeam user group leaders as well.
00:25:13
Speaker
So all this activity is taken into consideration. um But we have them as legends because they really like being in you know, and producing content in the Veeam community platforms.
00:25:31
Speaker
But then when we talk about Vanguard, yes, Vanguard are mostly active on their own properties. If you think about like you right now, right, you have this podcast, so you like to be active talk about the beam talk about technology talk about um ah communities um on your own property rather than going to the to the community hub or R&D forums and produce content in there.
00:26:04
Speaker
um So I think that's kind of the main difference. If you ask me between Legends and Vanguard, I think all legends and vanguards are really top technical experts when we talk beam products it's just a matter of preference really and it's a again it's a matter of okay you are um less under um like a microscope that that doesn't sound well but that's what it is in the sense that um you know you are your activity is not um
00:26:48
Speaker
on ah on a metric base, on a metric system base, as it is for the legends. But as I said, I do believe that this world are coming closer together.
00:27:03
Speaker
So thou would me that would be my takeaway when it comes to the two programs and just like, you know, some things that um are different and some things that are very similar. Yeah. And to add to Maddie's point and kind of what we discussed with the Legends on an intake level where the Legends are biannually checked twice a year, the vanguards are annual.
Annual Review Process of Vanguard Program
00:27:31
Speaker
So at the end of the year, usually December, Nicola, who runs that program, opens the application form and the vanguards, as you both know, submit everything you've done throughout the year.
00:27:43
Speaker
But for the vanguards as well, like Maddie mentioned, not everything is under a microscope. We even check things you've done locally. because that was a thing for the program before the legends existed. It's these people who are on their own properties. was It was more vague what a Vanguard was. it was just these Veeam evangelists in every single way possible.
00:28:01
Speaker
So that also included, what are you doing locally for Veeam? Are you an evangelist? Do people count on you for presentation? So that's also something we take into consideration for the Vanguards, if people are interested who listen to this.
00:28:14
Speaker
and then Oh, no, I think they are. it really is a ah thing that comes up often is once you learn about the program, people get curious. And I'm not sure that they really know about the different programs. And even when you ask a Vanguard, how did you become a Vanguard? I think everybody's journey is different depending when they came in the program and how we would describe it.
00:28:37
Speaker
um Locally, you're right. Jonah and I also represent the Texas Beam user group in there. um Texas is a big place, you know, about the size of Europe, if you will.
00:28:48
Speaker
And getting around and talking to those folks, that's a lot of what we try to do with the community. So while it's not really, I guess, in our official Vanguard role, in my brain, I should say, I never thought about that.
00:28:59
Speaker
But that's really what we try to architect is building a community of people in in person that get together, know Veeam, talk about Veeam, evangelize it, and support one another in there.
00:29:13
Speaker
So it's interesting to think that Veeam is looking at Vanguards even in the local presence because I always think of the word influencer when I think about Vanguard. And then I'm like, oh, no, do I have an Instagram? Am I like, ka-ching, ka-ching?
00:29:26
Speaker
And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not me. Tom's not on Instagram. Well, i guess I'm somewhere on there, but you'd be sadly- Code Tom, 10% off, you know? Exactly, exactly. But that's why we did the podcast, everybody. Jonah and I were kicking around talking about things, even with my company, that marketing was like- webinars And I was like, I cannot go to yet another webinar. It is the same recycled content.
00:29:52
Speaker
It is the let's get more people here. We'll give them a DoorDash gift card and then they'll come in for a virtual lunch and whatever. And I was like, you know what? What if we just ramble nonsense on a Friday morning and we'll release them out?
00:30:05
Speaker
And let's get some big names in there and bring somebody on like Maddie or Sophia and be like, you can talk to us, but you can't literally hit everything you've been in your talking circuits because we know you've been folks.
00:30:17
Speaker
They get you on all the coolest places, and sometimes it's kind of that same content because you're working the circuits. And we're always like, give us the secret sauce. Give us the little conversations in here. So I think people listening today might get a little bit better understanding of what the Veeam community is and and the value here rather than going to the webpages, which look really nice, and they have our glam shots. So, yeah, we're up there. We're like, kachik, tame, kachik.
00:30:43
Speaker
Jonah, you know, it's, and then we write our little bios, but I think this brings it home a little bit more. And I've enjoyed doing the podcast. And I think in the month of December, we had something like 300 listeners, which was just mind blowing for a bunch of guys dabbling with podcasts.
00:31:00
Speaker
And, um, the community has really, i believe pushed me to do a little bit more is what I liked about it is, You run in your own little circle and you're in your job and you're really good with Vee and people come see you. And then you start meeting some other folks and you're just like, holy goodness, look at that person. They are like a genius. You're like, wow, look at what they've architected. And you're just floored.
00:31:27
Speaker
And then they're like, by the way, here's the keys to the kingdom. Let me show you how i did that. And you're like, wait, you're going to show me how you did that. And It's just so amazing in there. And so that Vanguard committee has been just instrumental, instrumental, I believe, for us in that regard.
00:31:46
Speaker
um There is one thing that, the yeah, i mean you hit that point, Safiya hit that point and um really want to talk a little bit about it. um You know, there are two type of people. It's people that are always like,
00:32:03
Speaker
kind of not running away, but being skeptical about community being too good. You know, like when you go there and you talk about the benefits that you get through this program, like Jonah was mentioning earlier, you know, access to betas, access to, um you know, like product managers. And you even have that VIM 100 Summit.
00:32:26
Speaker
We are not going to go now in deep into it, but it's just like basically gathering all these, right, top technical experts, legends, vanguards, MVPs together bringing the product managers and the product strategy and some cool important names from Veeam and discussing technology and giving some you know sneak peeks and more than sneak peeks sometimes.
00:32:51
Speaker
um But there are we had some of these people in the legend program actually, you know, they were just active because, um you you know, the community hub, the R&D forums was like useful in the sense that they were receiving the answers and you know, uh, that they needed for their work. And because they were so active, they kind of became, um, legends.
00:33:16
Speaker
And when we send an email to let them know that they made it to the program, um, and these are the benefits and you're going to be invited to this VIM 100 summit and you're going to get that and that, and they were like, so skeptical and they were like, okay, what's going on in here.
00:33:34
Speaker
this is not right, you know? So I feel like there is this type of person in the community that is still active, but like they don't really understand what the community is all about.
Understanding Community Benefits and Impact
00:33:50
Speaker
And, you know, if you are part of this group,
00:33:53
Speaker
we are trying to recognize the fact that you are helping and supporting the community. And um it's cool that, you know, I saw that person or those people coming to VIM 100 Summit and being so, but you know, grateful that they are actually part of it. And they are like,
00:34:13
Speaker
Oh my God, I did not understand what community was all about. I did not understand that Veeam is so generous if you are kind of give it forward and you are supporting the users and you are supporting the rest of the community.
00:34:29
Speaker
Wow. And then you have also those people that are really trying to get into the Vanguard program, less legend because, you know, um it's a different type of personality, a little bit there, more shy, ah not necessarily trying to make it.
00:34:46
Speaker
It's more about it comes more organically than the Vanguard, because for the Vanguard, you have to apply, right? So you have those people that are just applying and they just want to be in the in the community.
00:35:00
Speaker
And there are people that are really getting what the community is and they are doing a lot of things in that sense to get in the community. Or you just have like, hey, I'm just going to apply anyway. Let's see if I'm getting the benefits, you know, like ah even though their that activity doesn't ah scream Vanguard or like, you know, that you should be part of this program.
00:35:25
Speaker
So yeah, that's very interesting. you you You see all these type of personalities, but when the first one happens, um I'm ah very happy, you know, to, you know, and it just feels like, hey, that's amazing. You know, it just came so organically. And even though they did not understand the community,
00:35:46
Speaker
Now they do. They fully understand and they kind of want to be part of it because now they see it. So, yeah. Well, I'm going to pitch it over to Sophia a little bit. Let's pivot into the Veeam user groups.
00:36:00
Speaker
So tell us a little about our Veeam user groups and what they look like.
Role of Veeam User Groups
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, so Beam user groups are these regional local programs that are run by regular Beam users like yourself, Tom.
00:36:15
Speaker
ah They can be but customers, they can be partners. And they lead these groups locally, virtual events, in-person events to just spread the knowledge to have these groups that it can always be a go to for if you have questions, if you want to connect with people over an issue they've been having, if you just want to hear presentations and network with people who like the same things you do. That's what the beam user groups are really for. Currently, we have about a little over 30 user groups off the top of my head that are active make up globally. We have some spread across the states, Canada, ah heavily in Europe. We have a lot of user group space there starting to build over in Asia, Africa, Latin America. Maddie and I just actually had a call with someone this morning to get a new group started over in Latin America.
00:37:05
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, it's a big project that we've been working on for the past two years, kind of starting it over post-COVID because they kind of died down a bit. But it's its been amazing to see the growth of the user groups, Tom and Jonah being a part of that.
00:37:22
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's it's just ah it's a great program, and I encourage people to get involved locally where they can. If there is a user group in their area, you can always check them out on the hub.
00:37:33
Speaker
but Yeah. um Well, you guys you guys don't know this yet, but we have just secured our funding for a summer and a fall roadshow.
00:37:43
Speaker
So the Texas boys are going to be out and we are going to on June 3rd be in Austin. Fourth, we're going to be in Houston. And fifth, we're going to be in Dallas. So we're going to be roadshowing there.
00:37:56
Speaker
um We're going to be out there with Object First and Wasabi and Cloud IBR and Cyber Fortress and different devs. as sponsors and we don't know where we're going to go. We don't know what we're doing specifically, but mark your calendars.
00:38:10
Speaker
We'll start getting some things out there. And I can tell you, it's been a really positive experience. I know Sophia, you came out for our Houston event. And there were some excited folks in there. And some of those folks have networked a little bit more, as I understood. There were a couple um people that worked for solution providers that linked in with end users and started working together, which was a nice little testimony. So absolutely. And the Dallas one blew us away.
00:38:39
Speaker
We had some really big names in there. We had some We didn't have a big turnout for our Dallas one, um some marketing blips in there, but the groups that came out, I think there were three or four names and they were all Fortune 100 companies. And it was shocking to see, and I'm not going to divulge who they were, but they came out and they were like, wait, what's an object first? What's immutable storage? And I'm like, mind blown. I was like, you're in this huge corporation. You have DR and you're wondering what is this and how can I do this?
00:39:09
Speaker
And It was amazing because the journey even was like, well, maybe in a budget cycle, we can get there. And then I think like a backblaze was there and they're like, listen for this amount per terabyte. And they were like, you just see their minds exploding. And Jason Buffington came out and did kind of an ask me anything there.
00:39:27
Speaker
And they were shocked because why is this person from the main stage that we see somewhere else sitting here in a small group of 20 people talking to us?
00:39:39
Speaker
just mind-blowing, even for me. And Jonah, so you've been around for the iterations of Veeam user groups. You're a Veeam user group leader. what i mean, where's your take
Traditional Marketing vs. Veeam User Groups
00:39:49
Speaker
on it?
00:39:49
Speaker
We all get those marketing emails that say, come on out to Topgolf and have a beer on us and be trapped in a room. And then you have a Veeam user group, which basically I've made the same pitch, I think is come see us somewhere. We'll trap you in a room with food. But what's your difference between marketing event and user group? I mean, is there a value difference?
00:40:08
Speaker
I think it's different audiences. I think when you see a marketing event, you know, i attended those once upon a time and my frustration with it being on the technical side of the world was that it was always much more high level speaking of here's what's new in Veeam, here's how you can leverage Veeam almost more to like a executive or a salesperson at that company as a partner.
00:40:29
Speaker
versus on the Veeam user group side. I mean, we go and we can do very technical deep dives, you know as deep as people want to get. We tend to see the more engineering people come out. So you know I remember the Dallas event.
00:40:41
Speaker
I was up on the screen on the projector, basically going through all the steps of deploying a Veeam hardened Linux repository, you know running the hardening scripts, checking everything, removing the root access. And then on the other side of the room, we had someone from object first who side by side comparison, you know, I'm sitting there and things aren't working, I'm having to do some work arounds.
00:41:00
Speaker
And I'm not even like 20% of the way through the deployment. And he's like, hey, object first to set up and ready to be added to beam to do backups. No, that's awesome. And then I think we even went a little further, which was cool.
00:41:15
Speaker
We were then able to, in different devs role as professional services, say, well, yeah, the lower ownership cost seems to be this Linux hardened repository, but how many people on your teams have Linux gurus that are going to go here and patch them and maintain them and support them and monitor them and everything else?
00:41:33
Speaker
And so here, here's a snapshot of what we would have charged to be in this realm. And now the customer's going, well, I have this hardware I bought for lower cost, but now I have professional services. i have an ongoing engagement. And then here's object first going, Hey, we're just wrapped in a nice little box. We're in a great little package.
00:41:50
Speaker
And you can see some people were, we like this Linux route and I do love the Linux route. I do like object first, different use cases in there. And we had this organic conversation. And then people sharing from the field of where they were.
00:42:04
Speaker
um It was just a real free formed conversation. So at least in the Texas group, we like to kind of come in with a ah topic, if you will, but really a lot of it turns into a forum discussion. Like we want to work the room and have conversation. Whereas I think when you go to the top golf, it's, hi, I'm here today to release the greatest new feature of whatever,
00:42:26
Speaker
And afterwards, let's mingle at the bar and then go play some golf or something. Whereas with us, we were really diving into strange. i think Jason shared stories of like the origins of VSS or something like that. And for the dinosaurs in the room, we were giddy, because we're like, we remember those days.
00:42:44
Speaker
It was really exciting. We had quite the patch management and security conversation too, because we were about, think, like two weeks after the CrowdStrike outage, and especially having Fortune in the room, and Cyber Fortress uses CrowdStrike, several of us were commiserating over the issues the outages caused.
00:43:03
Speaker
Oh, and and I think we should throw shout out to Nico Stein, one of our vanguards as well. We had him on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. And one of the things that he helped during the CrowdStrike, if you all remember, was he had come up with the whole concept of putting your Veeam agent into the bootloader menu pre-existing with the CrowdStrike.
00:43:24
Speaker
And he wrote some great content on it. But when CrowdStrike hit, I personally wasn't really affected by it, but I remember he was all over the community reminding people, hey, with three clicks, you can come back with Veeam. So I think a lot of people were thinking, I have full recoveries, have to QC my environment. And here's Nico, Vanguard guy, just going next, next click, quick little content. And boom, that thing is circulating everywhere and saving hours of time, days for people all day long. And just because
00:43:57
Speaker
he had a solution
Power of Community Programs: Hackathons and Collaborative Efforts
00:43:59
Speaker
and put it up. And I think that's the power of the community between these different channels. So legends, vanguards, user group, I think we would be hated horribly Jonah. If we did not mention the beam hackathon, we've covered it on shows, but just real quick, of course, there's a beam hackathon, get out there, watch for it. Another one will be coming, but before we close out, I want to turn it back to our experts, of course, thanking you both for being here.
00:44:24
Speaker
um But what have we missed about community? I'll throw it over to Maddie first. What have we missed about community, closing thoughts? what Play us out, so to speak.
00:44:35
Speaker
Well, thank you very much for having me, first of all. Really good conversation in here. Hopefully it's not the last time when I'm going to be a guest on your podcast.
00:44:45
Speaker
Really fun, really good. And definitely people should listen to it because you definitely have some light, good conversations around different topics. um Well, I think there is still so much to cover, really. We we only, like, if you think about, um discuss just, the you know, the ah the top of the iceberg in here, there is still so much more. I invite really people to come to the community hub and get engaged and find out about um everything we have to offer in there, you know, like...
00:45:22
Speaker
like There are some other initiatives like a Vim 100 show where you guys are discussing about your passionate projects and you too were part of it, if I'm not wrong, last year 2024.
00:45:36
Speaker
in two thousand and twenty four and there is a blog of the month if you are passionate about writing just come and you know just compete for that that's a really fun thing to do and um you know just come and contribute and be part of the community as safia mentioned the beam user groups you know like uh just get involved locally as well if um I think it's just great. Start with that. you know There are so many people that are speaking a different language than English and sometimes it's just frightening you know to just get into a forum where everything is in in English and you're not very comfortable with it. But that's why we have the read the local, the regional Vimuser groups where you can get involved and you can
00:46:24
Speaker
find the information in your own like language, get involved as well on the virtual events. Those are cool as well. We have those thematic groups. And if you are passionate about, don't know, cybersecurity, Kubernetes, you can just go and learn in there.
00:46:39
Speaker
So many, many ah things ah really to still cover and talk about. And I definitely invite everyone to come and join the community hub and be part of it.
00:46:51
Speaker
Just out of curiosity, if not anything else, you know, just yeah figuring out what what is this topic they are talking about. So, yeah, that would be it.
00:47:03
Speaker
Well, Sophia, I totally keep cheating you here. I keep prepping Maddie to talk. And then going at anything else. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a softball to this podcast will release right before Veeamon.
Promoting VeeamON Event
00:47:18
Speaker
And I think there's a booth or something there that some of us might be at, but what would you like to add in closing with our Veeam community? Yeah, I mean, if this does come out before VeeamON, definitely visit us in the expo. We'll have a little ah community booth at the Veeam larger area with all the little Veeam booths. But check us out there. We'll have T-shirts, beach balls, pins, stickers, all the works that we always do.
00:47:44
Speaker
Having our Veeam experts here who are discussing how the community has impacted them. So some testimonials there. So definitely check us out. And i will just end with communities for all, whether you're a novice or an expert. So don't be shy. get in there.
00:47:58
Speaker
Discuss. We'll be happy to welcome you.
00:48:02
Speaker
I agree. I think it is all about mentorship, too. That's been very important in my life is the mentoring side of it, being a mentoree and being a mentor. And I think in the community program, I find that you get the balance of both.
00:48:15
Speaker
While you may mentor someone else, someone else is mentoring you. um And it may not even be a formal role. Us dinosaurs always kind of had those formal. I think it's just through alliances and meals and just kind of the casual nature of things that these these happen.
00:48:33
Speaker
um Jonah, yourself, we'll let you pay some bills here since you have a Recovery People t-shirt on here. So go ahead and shameless plugs go right ahead.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i was just gonna say, i would not have had the opportunities in my career that I have had if not for the Beam community, you know, in particular, the Vanguard program, the user groups, you know, product strategy team and these people on the call specifically are some of my favorite people at Beam because I think in a lot of ways, the community gets undervalued by a lot of people.
00:49:07
Speaker
And like I said, I wouldn't be where I am today if not for the Beam community and these programs. I love that journal. Thank you.
00:49:19
Speaker
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