Beginning your cybersecurity education paves the way to a realm where innovation intersects with resilience. For those just starting, I’ve compiled a streamlined selection of resources that have helped me lay the groundwork and expand my understanding of the digital security landscape.
As you explore these materials, remember that this is a starting point. Cybersecurity is a vast and ever-changing field; continuous learning is crucial to any career. This is only the beginning of the rabbit hole!
As a starting point:
Sign up for one of the free courses offered below.
Then, sign up for various newsletters and start listening to podcasts when possible.
Keep adding to your base knowledge and going deeper.
Online Courses
Cybrary – Offers a range of courses from beginner to advanced levels, including cybersecurity for IT professionals.
Introduction to Cybersecurity – Offered by Cisco’s Networking Academy, this beginner-friendly course covers the basics.
Cybersecurity for Business—This course, provided by the University of Colorado, is available on Coursera and is ideal for understanding cybersecurity in a business context.
LinkedIn Groups – Join groups like “Cybersecurity Professionals” to engage in community discussions.
Find your local cybersecurity groups! (Meet-up, Slack)
Newsletters
SANS NewsBites – A concise, twice-weekly email digest of the top computer security news items.
Infosecurity Magazine – Free to subscribe and provides the latest cybersecurity news, analysis, and opinions.
Books
The Art of Invisibility” by Kevin Mitnick – An excellent start for understanding the importance of privacy in the digital age.
Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know by P.W. Singer and Allan Friedman – Provides a comprehensive overview of cybersecurity’s critical aspects.
Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick – offers an insider’s look at hacking and how it influences security measures.
Confident Cyber Security: How to Get Started in Cyber Security and Futureproof Your Career by Jessica Barker.
Let’s start with a little conversation I have from time to time.
Me: Ok, I’m sure you know that Veeam host User Groups year round?
You: “Looking at me like I’m crazy”
Me: What, wait, you didn’t know!
You: Wait.. I do know, but I forgot, didn’t know where to look, seen an email but then it got lost in the other 500 emails I got that day!
Me: Makes sense, well let me help you out and let you know where to get all the goods, all the time!
Really, that is a conversation I have with myself… So I’m going to write down notes to keep myself in check, and if you want you can copy them. I won’t tell anyone, I promise 😉
The first way you typically find out about a VUG is from your friendly Veeam employees via email, or social media like Twitter, or LinkedIn. Let’s just say you remember seeing it, but can’t locate it. You want to head over to this location that is built for the Veeam Community. There is a wealth of details over here (Distraction alert: A blog by Chris McDonald that will give you lots of resources to use), but if you are looking for Canadian based VUGs you want to head directly over to the location strictly created for Veeam Canada User Groups.
Once you get over to the VUG Canada Group – You want to Join!
Once you click “Join Group” you are now a member. You will get alerts, and also be able to join in on conversations with the Community members.
We do two different types of VUGs in Canada
Canada Wide
Region Based
The Canada VUGs are lead by Chris Childerhose, The region based are typically ran by Veeam Systems Engineers. You could get a mix of your favorite Veeam Systems Engineers.
If you happen to read this blog, and you want to find other User Groups that are outside of Canada, take a look at our Event Calendar.
Please do remember the VUG is not only about the in-person and Virtual meetings. Please do have a read of what else is offered.
I could not leave without noting what is coming up.
Nov 3, from 12-1PM MT – Western Canada
Join Craig and Jeremy at the West Canada Veeam User Group (VUG) meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 3 from 12-1pm MST. They will give you a lot of great technical information to help you improve your Veeam knowledge, learn about the new v11a, see a live demo and get your questions answered.
Nov 10, from 12-1PM ET – Central, and Eastern Canada
Join Chris McDonald and Alex Crandall for the Central and East Canada Veeam User Group (VUG) meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 10 from 12-1pm EST. They will give you a lot of great technical information to help you improve your Veeam knowledge, learn about the new v11a, see a live demo and get your questions answered.
Assistez à la réunion VUG le 17 novembre à 12h00. Sylvain et Florent vous donneront beaucoup d’informations techniques intéressantes emballées en une heure. Pendant ce temps, vous améliorerez vos connaissances sur Veeam, découvrirez des fonctionnalités intéressantes, assisterez à une démonstration en direct et obtiendrez des réponses à vos questions.
The majority of IT folks have some sort of lab. It comes a time when a downsize or upgrade occurs.
You know what that means there is some decent lab gear up for grabs. Now… Some of us with extra equipment laying around could go ahead and sell it and that’s good too. But a great man Josh Wagman came up with an idea to give it away! WHAT! Free stuff!
Sort of… There’s a catch. O we knew it Rick! But trust me it’s for a great cause. We want you to donate to ALS Society of Canada in honour of Michael White. Then if you want a piece of equipment and you live in the city of the person with the equipment it is yours! That said, a donation would be welcomed either way.
Anyone who knows Michael knows he would do the same thing for anyone of us. He has been a pillar in the world of VMware as long as I can remember with his Notes from MWhite! We in the community want to try and repay all the effort he has put in for us over the years. Help us! Help Michael! The IT Community is strong let’s show it!
We will update this table as items are added, and claimed. For Edmonton I will be adding some equipment over the weekend. Also feel free to join in and add your items to the comment section.
**Local Pickup Only no shipping **To be clear this is all used Lab equipmenT AS-IS Warranty**
When most people think of the components that make up a Veeam Backup and Replication infrastructure, the common expectation is that there are three:
Veeam Backup Server
Proxy Server(s)
Repository Server(s)
Simple Backup Repository
Scale-out Backup Repository
It may surprise you that there are additional components that enable Veeam’s simplicity, reliability and flexibility. I would like share a number of these other components and provide some suggestions on their deployment to ensure that you get the most out of your Veeam implementation.
Microsoft SQL Server:
The Veeam configuration is stored in a Microsoft SQL Server database – known as the Veeam configuration database. (I mean, what else did you think it would be called? 🙂 )
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 SP2 is included with Veeam Backup and Replication v10. It is important to be aware of the limits that the Express version has:
Limited to the lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores
A maximum of 1.4 GB of RAM
Database size can be no larger than 10 GB
Therefore, it is suggested to use a standard or enterprise edition of SQL Server when:
You want to use the advanced features of Microsoft SQL Server
Protecting more than 500 workloads
Using Files to Tape jobs extensively
Unable to configure an external staging server (more on the staging server later)
Veeam Backup and Replication Console:
The Veeam Backup and Replication Console is a client-side component that lets to manage, configure, and administer the Veeam infrastructure. By default, the console is installed on the Veeam Backup server, but you can also install it on your local workstation.
The console does not connect directly to the backend SQL Server or any of the other infrastructure components. It connects directly to the Veeam Backup Server service and queries it periodically while the console is open.
The console will automatically be upgraded when the Veeam Backup and Replication server is upgraded. When the console starts, it will communicate with the backup server service and determine that an upgrade is required. The upgraded console version will automatically be downloaded and installed once user confirmation is received.
WAN Accelerator:
When sending data to an offsite location, one of the biggest challenges that you may encounter is the lack of bandwidth. There may be simply more data that you need to copy over in a period of time than the laws of physics will allow.
To overcome these (lack of) bandwidth challenges, Veeam offers WAN acceleration that helps optimize data transfer over a WAN. This is a built-in feature that enables:
Global data deduplication
Network traffic compression
Multi-streaming upload
And with the release of Veeam Backup and Replication v10, there is also a “High Bandwidth Mode” available for WAN Acceleration. This would be used when connections of 100 Mb/s or greater. “High Bandwidth Mode” will use a quicker compression method, optimized fingerprints / digests and an alternative deduplication algorithm specifically designed for high speed connections.
The result of Veeam WAN Acceleration… a better and higher speed data transfer – regardless of what your WAN connection speed is!
Guest Interaction Proxy
Let’s first answer the question… what is a “Guest Interaction Proxy” and why do I need one?
The guest interaction proxy is used when at least one of the following is configured in the backup job:
Application Aware Processing
Guest file system indexing
Transaction log processing
When the backup job starts and is processing the VM, it will deploy a runtime process in the VM guest OS.
The benefit of identifying additional and / local guest interaction proxies is that it will allow you to spread the load across a number of hosts. In addition, if you are protecting VM’s in a remote site, it will ensure that you minimize the amount of traffic that is transmitted across the WAN connection.
As a best practice, you will want to ensure that the assigned guest interaction proxy is located on the remote site if the job is protecting remote workloads. In addition, having more than one guest interaction proxy will provide redundancy in the event one is offline.
If you would like to configure the guest interaction proxy, simply take a look at a backup job settings under “Guest Processing”:
Mount Server:
The primary focus of the mount server is to reduce the amount of traffic when performing file, application and instant VM recoveries to a remote site. The mount server is also used when performing a Veeam Secure Restore.
When initiating an applicable restore type, Veeam will mount the backed up VM disk(s) to the mount server.
Once the disks from the backups are mounted, the applicable Veeam Explorer will be able to navigate and select the applicable files / application items to restore. The same mounting process occurs for a Secure Restore and the applicable Anti-Virus solution(s) will scan the disk(s). That is very important since Veeam is not powering on the VM to run a scan. As the act of powering on a VM may initiate the virus to be enabled.
If your Veeam Backup server is remote to where your backup repository is located, specifying a local mount server (to the repository) will ensure a minimal amount of traffic will be sent across the WAN for the restore process.
As a best practice, you will want to ensure the assigned mount server is as close to the repository (and have network connectivity) as possible. Therefore, be sure to select a mount server that is local to the repository.
If you would like to configure / edit which Mount Server is being used, simply edit an applicable repository:
Gateway Server:
When you deploy a network attached storage (SMB / NFS), Dell EMC DataDomain or HPE StoreOnce repository, each of these do not have ability to run the Veeam Data Mover service. As a result, a connection between the backup proxy and backup repository or between backup repositories can not be established. To enable communication, a Veeam Gateway Server is utilized.
The Veeam Gateway server will host a Veeam Data Mover service and will then allow communication / data transport between the data mover services.
As a best practice, you will want to ensure the assigned gateway server is as close to the repository (and have network connectivity) as possible. Therefore, if sending data over a WAN, select a gateway server on the target side.
If you would like to configure / edit which Gateway Server is being used, simply edit an applicable repository:
Staging Server:
When you want to fine-tune a SQL Server, Oracle server and SharePoint server, the Veeam Staging Server makes that possible. Think of it as a “helper” for Veeam’s advanced recovery features.
A staging server is required in the following scenarios:
Restore or export to a specific transaction
Restore or export to a specific point in time
Restore or export a database object
Restore Microsoft SharePoint item level recovery
When using SQL Server Express for the configuration database and the database you are looking to restore exceeds the SQL Server express thresholds (ie: database size)
If you would like to configure / edit which Staging Server is being used, simply open the Veeam Explorer for SQL, Oracle, or SharePoint and go to the “General Options”.
Tape Server
Not only can Veeam send backups to disk, but Veeam also provides the capability to send your backups to tape along with files / shares / NDMP data in your environment. Really making it simple to implement the 3-2-1 rule with your data.
With Veeam Backup and Replication v10, Veeam supports tape drives of LTO-3 and above. The tape drive must have a a driver installed. However, Veeam is able to communicate directly with a tape library via SCSI commands if needed.
The tape server will be deployed from the Veeam Backup and Replication console… just like any Veeam component. It can deployed on a dedicated server or directly on the Veeam Backup and Replication Server.
Veeam Backup and Replication is the cornerstone of your data protection strategy. Knowing the different components, how they work, and how to configure them for the best performance will ensure your success!
Over the last 3 years, I had the opportunity to have a front row seat for two major releases of Veeam Availability Suite along with numerous updates. And with over 200+ new features / enhancements combined, one of my favourite innovations is the Veeam External Repository.
The first question you may be asking is… “What is an External Repository?”. Very simply, it is a READ-ONLY repository, managed through Veeam Backup and Replication, which allows you to access backups and data generated using Veeam Backup for AWS and / or Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure.
In the figure below, you can see that Veeam can create native snapshot(s) of your cloud instances along with sending a copy for backup purposes to lower cost object storage.
Once the backups are generated and placed in object storage, the External Repository will be able to leverage those backups for a variety of use cases (keep reading to find out!).
The process to configure a Veeam External Repository is as simple as creating a Backup or Scale-Out Backup Repository. First, initiate the configuration wizard and select the source (AWS or Azure):
Once the steps in the configuration wizard are complete, an “External Repository” option will be available under the “Backup” node in the Veeam Backup and Replication console once it is created.
When selecting the “External Repository”, it will enumerate the policies and backups configured in Veeam Backup for AWS and / or Veeam Backup for Azure. For example, below is a screenshot of policies defined in the Veeam Backup for AWS portal.
And what are the use cases for a Veeam External Repository? Let’s discuss!
Implement the 3-2-1 rule for your cloud based workloads
The External Repository can be used as a source for your backup copy jobs. This means that you have the capability to create additional copies of your cloud workloads and place them into a Backup or Scale-out Backup Repository:
Perform Instant VM Recovery of your cloud based workloads
The ability to instantly recover your on-premises workloads was a feature Veeam pioneered in 2010. Now with the External Repository, this capability has been extended to your cloud based workloads.
Not only will this ensure that your workloads are available to your end users and customers as quickly as possible, but this will also give you the greatest flexibility in workload mobility.
Restore your backups to the original cloud or an alternate cloud
Simply right click on the required workload and then select “Restore to…”
Easy access to restore guest OS files and folders
In addition to be able to restore an entire VM / workload, Veeam also provides the capability to easily access and restore guest files, folders, and volumes in the VM along with application items (SQL, Active Directory, Oracle, Exchange, SharePoint).
As a best practice, if you are sending your traffic across the public Internet and Direct Connect from Amazon or ExpressRoute from Microsoft are not being used, Veeam has a great FREE VPN solution called Veeam PN.
If you are currently or are planning to use Veeam Backup for AWS and / or Veeam Backup for Azure, the External Repository in the Veeam Availability Suite will provide simplicity to data protection and recovery ability along with cloud mobility.
I have been working from home for the last eight years. I have gained some valuable lessons during that time, one item stood out, and that was the habits I created while working in an office.
It’s natural to create habits; we all do it, without knowing. Over time, these cycles become second nature, and that is because we created practices over days, months or even years. I am going to assume here, you have patterns that you use day after day for your job!
How is this helpful? Because you can morph the habits that you had for the office into your new surroundings, your home!
The first step is hammering down the habits you have today, for your office life.
What do you do when commuting to the office? Who do you talk to when you get to the office? Break time, what do you do? When you finish up for the day, what are your closing tasks?
In principle, it sounds straightforward, and it is if you stick to the habits you already have created. If you have a team meeting every morning, you still can. If you talked with a co-worker at the water cooler every morning, call them up on your break. You shared lunch banter with someone every day, still do. Overall, you don’t have to change your habits, and you will just do them differently. It takes time and discipline to keep to your old habits, but you will.
Trying to stick to your patterns are key, and will make working from home, a hotel, or at the office the same experience.
If you are having trouble sticking to your old habits, you can create new ones, a book I read a few years ago helped me. It is logical, and makes 100% sense. The book author S.J. Scott delivers his methods in a easy to consume format, with specifics examples on how to “Habit Stack”. Check it out on Amazon
While working from home, you may not have the same data protection that an office environment provided. Rick Vanover has you covered over at the Veeam blog, have a read.
The majority of my acquaintances are in IT and have amazing home-labs. Who knows they might be willing to share their labs with you? Or you might want to share your resources? This must be done securely, have a look at the following blog on how to Install, Configure, and share securely with VeeamPN.
March 24th 2020 Veeam released the second version of its protection platform for Nutanix AHV.
v2 has deep integration into Veeam Backup & Replication v10. This is done by installing the Nutanix AHV Plug-in on your Veeam backup server. Once you have the plug-in installed, you can add a Nutanix AHV cluster, and deploy the AHV backup proxy via the Veeam Backup & Replication backup console. Review the video below for more on the steps for installation, configuration, and for some restore options.
What’s new?
Below is a list of the new features. For more details review the release notes, and the what’s new document.
Centralized management
Central deploy & upgrade proxies
Job management allowing you to view, start/stop, disable jobs, and launch the the proxy web UI directly from Veeam Backup & Replication.
License management
VeeamZip support
Restore improvements
AHV file level recovery appliance
Entire VM restore, allowing you to restore any workload to AHV including physical, virtual, and cloud servers.
AHV native snapshots restores
Instant VM recovery directly to VMware vSphere.
AHV Backup Proxy enhancements
Job options that allow you to create backup and snapshot only jobs on protection domains, with the added ability to take a scheduled active full.
Backup job targets which now include deduplication appliances, and repositories backed with file systems that support block cloning,
Global email notifications
Enterprise Manager integration for file level recovery
Veeam ONE support for backup reports with your AHV workloads.
Installation, Configuration, and Restores with Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV
Today marks the general availability of Veeam Backup & Replication v10!
This release has over 150+ enhancements, and the “What’s New” document is 16 pages long!
Here is the list of the new major features.
NAS backup
Provides the ability to protect NAS workloads running on SMB (1,2,3) NFS (3, and 4.1), and files sitting on Microsoft Windows, and Linux Servers.
This has all been built with scale in mind, and not just for processing initial full backups, but with a incremental forever approach with storage-agnostic changed file tracking.
Ransomware protection, and simplified data management
Immutable backups using S3 object locking.
Added a Copy Policy to Capacity Tier which will provide redundancy and off-site backups with ease.
Instant VM recovery
10 years ago, Veeam invented and pioneered Instant VM Recovery, with v10 it brings it to a new level.
Instant restore any backup to VMware.
Next-generation instant recovery engine, that has seen 3X improvement on boot times.
Ability to perform multi-VM instant recovery for VMware.
VM disk come to the mix, not only can you instantly restore a VM, you can now instantly restore a disk.
Veeam data integration API
Veeam has always been putting your backup data to work, with the likes of DataLabs. As of v10 you now have an API to interact with any Veeam backup.
Provide instance access to third-party products.
Perform data mining
Automate on-going security analysis
Linux Ecosystem Integration
XFS Integration
You can leverage fast clone technology which will provide much faster synthetic full backup operations, and also use space-less full backup technology reducing the amount of disk consumption required.
NFS backup repository
That’s right, you no longer need a Linux server to host your NFS shares, and it can be accessed native within Veeam for use as a repository.
Linux backup proxy
Setup Linux systems as hot-add proxies! You are not locked to an appliance and can use your preferred Linux distribution.
Network-less guest processing
This is for Linux VMs that Veeam cannot access the OS via the network. Using the vSphere guest interaction API, Veeam can access the guest OS via the ESXi host.
For more details head over and have a read of the “What’s New” and “Release Notes” documents.
I’m sure there has been a time when you are required to export a workload for a specific point in time from backups you already have. It could be for litigation reasons, an upgrade of an application, and many other countless use cases.
Did you know you can do that with your Veeam backups? Well… You can!
An export can be done from a full, incremental or reverse-incremental restore points, that are located in simple, scale-out, object storage, or cloud repositories.
IMPORTANT: If you are going to do this today, keep this in mind, and make sure to apply the private hot-fix if you are impacted. This hot-fix is only needed for environments where a Scale-Out Backup repository contains Linux-based or ExaGrid-based extents.
Let’s have a look.
First head over to your “Backups” and select “Disk”
Once you locate the backup you want to export, expand the backup, and right-click the system name. You will then select “Export backup”
Select the backup you want to export.
Specify the restore you want
Once you have your restore point selected, choose when you want this exported copy to be deleted.
In the next section you can provide a reason for the export task.
review your summary, if you are pleased, click finish.
The restore session will show the details of the job, and progress.
Once the task is completed you can access your exported point in time under “Backups” and “Disk (Imported)”
Here you can see the one restore point, the creation time, and date/time for the restore point.
The exported backup is located within the same repository where the source backup files were located. In this case FNReFS.
You will note that the source repository matches for the original backup.
if you explore the backup job location you will see a folder called “Oracle_Linux” that is the location the exported backup was created from. You will also notice a folder with the name “Oracle-Linux77_2019….” this is the exported copy, and you can see the name reflects the creation time, and the deletion time associated with these files.
You can see the file is exported as a VBK, you can copy or move it to another location if needed.
Today Veeam launched the new version of Backup for Microsoft Office 365 v4.
This version offers the following new features.
Leverage object storage to store your Office 365 data, including AWS S3, Azure Blob, IBM Cloud and S3-compatible providers.
Reduce costs with object storage and only pay for what you consume
Leverage unlimited scalability with unlimited storage capacity
Simplify deployment in the public cloud with no complex planning
Version 4 also includes added security with at-rest encryption for data in object storage and faster backup performance for SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business.
To find out more details head over to the following locations.
The Cloud Eh!? 
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