Advent Calendar Day 24: Thank You and Looking Ahead

Advent Calendar Day 24: We Made It! 🎄

Welcome to Day 24, the final day of our Veeam Blog Advent Calendar! We made it!

I can’t believe we’re already here. Twenty-four days of features, tips, technical deep dives, and hopefully a few “aha!” moments along the way. Whether you’ve been following along daily or binge-reading this all in one sitting (no judgment here!), thank you for being on this journey with me.

Grab your eggnog, hot chocolate, or whatever festive beverage you prefer—let’s reflect on what we’ve covered and look ahead!

What We Covered

Let’s take a trip down memory lane through the past 24 days:

Week 1: Getting Started

  • Day 1: Unwrapping 24 Days of Backup Magic - Advent Calendar Introduction
  • Day 2: Converting Kasten Helm Commands
  • Day 3: Exploring the Veeam Backup & Replication REST API
  • Day 4: Getting Hands-On with the Veeam REST API
  • Day 5: Setting Up N8N for Workflow Automation (Part 1)
  • Day 6: Building Veeam Workflows with N8N (Part 2)

Week 2: Security and Intelligence

  • Day 7: Utilizing Veeam Intelligence with VeeamONE
  • Day 8: Veeam Security - Before a Backup
  • Day 9: Veeam Security - During a Backup
  • Day 10: Veeam Security - After a Backup
  • Day 11: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead - Mid-Series Reflection
  • Day 12: VeeamZIP - The Unsung Hero of Quick Backups

Week 3: Advanced Operations

  • Day 13: Distributed Metadata - Your Ultimate Insurance Policy
  • Day 14: SAML Authentication - Modern Identity for VBR
  • Day 15: Backup Move - Seamless Backup Migration
  • Day 16: VMware Tags - Dynamic Backup Automation
  • Day 17: Protecting Intune Policies with Veeam
  • Day 18: Compare with Production for Active Directory

Week 4: Recovery and Automation

  • Day 19: Publishing VM Disks to Another Server
  • Day 20: Backup Job Pre and Post Scripts
  • Day 21: SureBackup Part 1 - Introduction
  • Day 22: SureBackup Part 2 - Advanced Configuration
  • Day 23: Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) in V13
  • Day 24: This post!

Key Themes Throughout This Journey

Looking back at everything we covered, a few themes kept emerging:

It Just Works™: I think I said this in nearly every post, but it’s true. Veeam consistently makes complex operations straightforward. From publishing disks to automating verification tests, the features work the way you’d expect them to.

Automation Everywhere: Whether it’s job scripts, VMware tag-based policies, or SureBackup verification, automation reduces manual work and improves consistency. Your future self will thank you for setting these up.

Security Built In: Immutable backups, RBAC, SAML authentication, YARA rule scanning—security isn’t an afterthought, it’s woven throughout Veeam’s feature set.

Verification Matters: Backups are only as good as your ability to restore. SureBackup, Compare with Production, and automated testing ensure your backups work when you need them most.

Flexibility for Every Scenario: Whether it’s storage options, recovery methods, deployment scenarios, or access control, Veeam adapts to your environment instead of forcing you to adapt to it.

Recovery Is Everything: At the end of the day, backups exist for recovery. Every feature we covered, from Instant VM Recovery to disk publishing to attribute comparison prioritizes making recovery fast, reliable, and flexible.

Hidden Gems We Discovered

Some of my favorite moments from this advent calendar were the features that genuinely surprise people:

  • Compare with Production (Day 18): That “wait, Veeam can do THAT?” moment when people realize you can see exact attribute-level changes in Active Directory
  • Disk Publishing (Day 19): The flexibility to just mount a disk from any restore point to any server—forensics teams love this
  • SureBackup (Days 21-22): Still the most underutilized powerful feature in Veeam’s arsenal
  • Pre/Post Scripts (Day 20): Such a simple feature that unlocks so many custom workflows

These are the features that transform Veeam from “just a backup tool” into a complete data protection and recovery platform.

What I Learned

Writing this advent calendar taught me a few things too:

I learned new details about features I thought I knew inside and out. Explaining how something works forces you to understand it at a deeper level.

I discovered that even features I’ve used for years have capabilities I hadn’t fully explored. The Compare with Production attribute comparison was a great example—I knew it existed, but diving deep into it revealed just how powerful it really is.

And honestly? Writing about Intune protection, RBAC, and some of these newer v13 features reminded me just how much Veeam has evolved over the years. The platform keeps getting better.

What’s Next?

After 40+ hours and 200 odd screenshots its a happy/sad moment that the Advent Calendar has come to an end, but the journey doesn’t stop here:

Keep Learning: Veeam constantly evolves. Stay current with new features, attend VeeamON, watch webinars, experiment in your homelab. There’s always something new to discover.

Test Regularly: Use features like SureBackup to continuously verify your backup strategy. Don’t wait for disaster to find out if your backups work.

Optimize Continuously: Review your configuration periodically. Are you using the best features for your needs? Could automation help? Is your storage optimized?

Share Knowledge: The Veeam community is incredible. Share your experiences, learn from others, contribute to forums. We’re all better when we learn together.

Plan for Growth: Your infrastructure will change. Ensure your backup strategy evolves with it. What works today might need adjustment tomorrow.

Wrapping Up

Here’s the thing about backup and recovery is it’s not glamorous work. It happens in the background, often unnoticed until it’s desperately needed.

Nobody celebrates when backups run successfully. There’s no parade when restores work flawlessly. It’s thankless work… until disaster strikes.

But when ransomware hits, when hardware fails, when someone accidentally deletes the entire production database (we’ve all seen it happen), when the data center goes dark, that’s when backup and recovery becomes the most important job in IT.

You are the safety net. You are the insurance policy. You are the reason the business can recover from disaster. You are the person who gets called at 2 AM when everything is on fire, and you’re the hero who brings it all back.

Take pride in that work. Invest in doing it well. Test regularly. Stay current. Never assume your backups work, verify they do. Use SureBackup. Test your restores. Know your recovery time objectives. Practice your disaster recovery procedures.

Because when disaster strikes, and it will, it’s not if but when, you’ll be ready.

Special thanks to:

  • The Veeam Community: Your questions, discussions, and shared experiences make us all better. The community is genuinely one of the best parts of working with Veeam.

  • Veeam: For building incredible software that makes our jobs easier and our data safer. And for giving us so many amazing features to write about!

  • The Veeam 100: My fellow community members sharing knowledge, writing blogs, making videos, and helping others succeed. You inspire me.

  • You: For taking the time to improve your skills, learn new features, and care about doing backup and recovery well. That matters more than you know.

Merry Christmas! 🎁

From my HomeLab to yours, I wish you:

  • Green backup jobs (all of them!)
  • Fast restores (when you need them)
  • Sufficient storage (always “just enough”)
  • Reliable infrastructure (and minimal 2 AM pages)
  • Minimal disasters (but confidence when they occur)
  • And time off during the holidays to spend with family and friends

Thank you for an incredible advent calendar journey. This was fun to write, and I hope it was valuable to read.

Stay curious, stay backed up, and happy holidays!

Until next time,
Andre