From the Lights of Vegas to the Beaches of Miami for VeeamOn 2023

As Will Smith eloquently said years ago – ‘Welcome to Miami – Party in the city where the heat is on” – and boy was he right about that heat! Wasabi spent the week working hard and playing hard in the Miami sun for VeeamOn this year, a nice break from the convention halls of Vegas.  VeeamOn is Veeam’s annual community event for data recovery experts and is a highlight of our events calendar every year.  The energy of the show was as electric as the neon lights of South Beach!  

Wasabi's Chris Rushton, winner of Veeam LabWarz

We didn't spend the week just basking in the sun and enjoying the nightlife though – we also spent it  WINNING Veeam LabWarz (Shoutout to the “Best Veeam Engineer in the world,” Wasabi's own Chris Rushton!), there was a lot of fantastic content and learnings to be taken away from the show this year:  

Security is as hot as the Miami sun  

According to Veeam’s 2023 Ransomware Trends Report, 85% of organizations suffered at least one ransomware attack in the past 12 months.  You probably have already noticed the uptick in those talking about ransomware, and unfortunately, experiencing cyber attacks.  As Brad Jervis, Chief Architect from Probax mentioned, “At this point, it's no longer IF you'll suffer a ransomware attack, but rather WHEN you'll be hit.”  Malicious actors can now basically buy “ransomware as a service” these days.  To make matters worse, 1 in 4 organizations paid the ransom and never got their data back, which is a nightmare scenario for any organization.  

That's why it's vital to not only back up your data, but to ensure recovery of that data as well.  Ransomware protection means you must be testing your backups and ensuring you can recover them quickly.  That's where Veeam and Wasabi come in:  Veeam can ensure your data is backed up with efficient restoration times.  And when your backups are stored in Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage, you can test them frequently with no penalty or fees for egress fees or API calls so you can ensure they're working.  Don't get caught in a situation where you assume you can recover your data. Instead, implement a testing and audit process for recovering your data quarterly or even monthly to practice and make sure you're ready for an attack.  

While we may all want to avoid talking about ransomware attacks or becoming victims, it's clear they just aren't going away any time soon.  With more and more data being stored daily, the risk increases of losing that data.  Keeping your data backed up and immutable with Wasabi is like sitting under an umbrella, wearing sunscreen and a big floppy hat to South Beach – make sure you're protected! 

Community is king 

We get by with a little help from our friends, and community can provide a sense of belonging and provide valuable and important feedback to companies.  That is why Veeam and their partners find so much value in the Veeam community.  From their award-winning partner program Veeam Alliances to the top-notch Veeam 100 Program, Veeam truly shows that they value their partners.  This community allows Veeam to gather feedback on products and where they should lead in the market, but it also gives them “reality checks” to know what's just noise and what is actually resonating.   

One key aspect of their community is the Veeam 100 made up of Veeam Vanguards and Veeam Legends.  This is a core group of industry experts and forward-thinking individuals that brings so much value to the community.  Wasabi had the honor of hosting the Veeam 100 for a cocktail hour during VeeamOn on Tuesday night – and we all had a great time!  While the storms moved us inside for the evening, this didn't rain on our parade for a good time, with great drinks and networking!  Wasabi truly enjoys engaging with the Veeam 100 and loves any chance we can interact with this extremely smart and fun group of experts.  

Community truly was king at VeeamOn – from the conversations we got to have in person, to the comradery built at the sessions and the afterhours events.  There is just no replacement for seeing your colleagues (and colleagues that have become friends) in person.

Wasabi makes Veeam Backup Better 

“It's a cloud world” and we're all just living in it,”  said Wasabi’s Sr. Director of Product Marketing, Drew Schlussel. With the delivery of Veeam Backup & Replication v12, direct-to-object backup and recovery has come to the forefront of the data protection and ransomware mitigation conversation.  Wasabi cloud object storage is a key component of a Veeam Backup & Replication solution for enterprises of all sizes. 

There are a hundred ways that Wasabi makes Veeam backups better, and you can listen to our on-demand session to hear them all, but I am going to focus on a couple of them today.  First is responsiveness. In the event you need your data, you (and your boss) can't wait for systems to begin running smoothly again.  We live in a society of instant gratification, and that translates to instant recovery when on-prem systems are compromised.  You don't want to be telling your boss you THOUGHT you had instant recovery of that critical data when he needs it.   

Not to beat a dead horse here, but as you've heard, security is vital to your business. Cloud object storage has ascended to include immutability with object lock, which is now the de facto protocol for secure backups.  Ransomware attacks rely on encrypting data which can make backups useless, but cloud object storage with object lock can nullify these attacks and keep your data protected.  And while backup has been around for ages and is vital to securing your data, it's not just about the backup anymore—it's about the recovery. Wasabi won't penalize you for restoring or testing your backups with excessive egress and API request fees. 

Lastly, scalability; get off the hardware hamster wheel by adding Wasabi as your cloud storage solution to provide endless capacity for backups and archives.  We all learned a hard lesson in the last few years about needing alternative solutions when hardware shortages come about due to whatever market factors we're seeing at the time (COVID, anyone?). The best solution is one that is scalable and flexible to your needs and that meets the growing adoption requirements of hybrid infrastructures. No more delaying your projects because of chip shortages and supply chain issues. With Veeam VBR v12 and VBM v7, you can now move your data direct-to-cloud and skip on-prem storage entirely (at least temporarily) when parking your critical data.  When your hardware arrives, or your budget allows for the purchase of additional hardware, you can move that data back for another location for storage to ensure you're meeting your hybrid cloud goals. The best part?  The cloud doesn't run out of space – you'll never get that dreaded error message saying your Wasabi cloud is almost full.  

While we said goodbye to Miami, we aren't saying adios to the lessons we learned there.  Ransomware won't be setting with the Miami sun and is likely around for the long-haul.  Make sure you have the ultimate backup, recovery, and cloud storage solution with Veeam Software and Wasabi to help you when you need it most. That's like using SPF 70 for protection from the heat of ransomware!  We can't wait to join this amazing community at future events and especially VeeamOn next year, wherever in the world that will take us!