This is a guest post from Maximilian Maier

Two weeks have gone by since I returned from VeeamON in Miami, and I’m still flashed about the great experience I’ve had. If I would have to describe it in one word, I would say ‘fantastic’.

In the past I was only able to attend virtually or watch the recorded sessions. But this year I could join in-person, as Veeam invited the Veeam100 (Legends, Vanguards, VeeamMVP) to Miami.

VeeamON 2023 started on Monday at lunch time. After the registration I headed to the Community Playground and took a first look at was offered there. Here the attendees could do hands-on-labs, compete at the LabWarz competition, have talks with Veeam staff or join Tech Talks held by the Veeam100 members.
Also there’s been a gaming area around the Swag store, where you could for example play golf or table soccer.

And of course there was the Veeam Community Booth, were I volunteered to be part of in the afternoon. It felt good to talk about the Veeam Community and introduce it to new members.

After that I tried my luck at the LabWarz; I ended up with second place 🥈

Next I headed to the Tech Festival and to get in touch with Veeam’s partners. The afternoon went by very quickly and ended with the Opening Ceremony, after which I went to bed early as I still was rather tired of the flight.

On Tuesday the official part of VeeamON started and together with Wednesday the days were packed with lots of sessions.
My schedule in the event app looked very chaotic as I had many conflicting sessions and so it often wasn’t that much a help.

It’s hard for me to summarise all the sessions I attended. For some I took notes, for others I took pictures of important slides.
Veeam could have easily filled another day with all of this great content (70 sessions in Miami, 86 sessions online). With so many different technical focus areas, everyone was able to find interesting sessions.
The good news is that some of the sessions are now available on-demand together with the slides.
And even better, all the online content is available for free, and even if you weren’t able to join, you can still register: https://veeam.com/veeamon

The time in Miami ran like nothing and soon after the last session (‘All demo session for Veeam Hardened Repository’), the event ended with the closing party.

Fantastic is really the right word to describe my days in Miami.
All of the sessions I attended offered great knowledge which is useful for my daily work. It will still take some time to work through everything and I will have to watch some of the recordings; so for me VeeamON isn’t over yet.
Also meeting the other attendees, the Veeam staff and my fellow Legends/Vaguards was awesome. We’ve had great conversations and also lots of fun during the event. And besides VeeamON itself, it was really exciting for me to travel to the States for the first time since my childhood.

Oh, and also not to forget about all the Veeam swag I did receive during those days; including my own “Protected by Veeam” sticker (Thanks Safiya 😃)

So, would I recommend anyone to join VeeamON in-person? Yes, I certainly would. If you’re active in the data protection field and working with Veeam products, then VeeamON is the event where you want to be. There’s no better place to get all the knowledge and news directly from the Veeam experts.

At the end I can only say thank you to…

• Veeam for inviting us to Miami
• my employer itelio for giving me the time to join
• and to my family for supporting me on this journey