Day 3 had a very different energy compared to the first two days — and honestly, that wasn’t a bad thing at all.

Where Day 1 was overwhelming and Day 2 felt sharp and focused, Day 3 landed somewhere in between: solid sessions, good interaction, and a strong emphasis on real conversations — both in and between sessions.

Sessions: good substance, manageable fluff

Overall quality stayed at a good level.

✔ Interactive sessions
✔ Speakers who clearly knew their material
✔ Mostly aligned with what the session titles promised – mostly… Improvements can definitely be made 😉

Not everything was ultra-deep, but most sessions delivered useful takeaways rather than marketing slides with fancy animations. The biggest downside wasn’t content quality — it was time. Several sessions could easily have used another 10–15 minutes just for Q&A. When the questions start getting interesting and the moderator says “one last question”… that’s usually a good sign.

A very Juniper-heavy day (for me)

Day 3 turned out to be very Juniper-focused on my personal agenda — and that was entirely intentional.

Lots of Juniper-specific sessions, lots of architectural discussions, and refreshingly little hand-waving. It was good to see speakers go beyond feature checklists and actually talk about why certain design decisions exist and where things still get tricky in real deployments – at least some.

That said: some of those sessions clearly deserved a more technical audience format. Less “presentation”, more “discussion” would have worked even better. HPE should really introduce “Expert” Sessions where you can truly discuss the bits and bytes with PLM’s and SME’s – happy to do a session next year if anyone from HPE want’s to accept community sessions *wink wink*

AI… again. Still a tool. Not a religion.

Let’s address the elephant that keeps reappearing in almost every room:

Yes, AI is interesting.
Yes, AI can be powerful.
Yes, AI can absolutely help in networking and operations.

But dear vendors — please:

Stop presenting AI as our Lord and Savior.

It is not.
It will never be.
It is a tool.

A cool tool, sometimes even a very useful one – but still just another tool – one of many tools. Whenever sessions focused on practical use cases, limitations, and integration into existing operational models, things were good. Whenever it drifted into “AI will fix everything”, the collective eye-rolling in the room became almost audible. And it’s scary that some presenters really seem to believe that AI will take over soon – it will most definitely NOT – and if one more speaker says “and let AI do it’s magic” I need a bucket to puke into 😉

Less fairy dust. More engineering. We’ve been over this 😉

Hallway Track: undefeated champion of TechJam

Once again, the hallway track delivered.

I met a ton of people from all over the world — engineers, architects, peers, and familiar faces you somehow always bump into at exactly the right moment. Some of the best conversations of the day didn’t happen in session rooms but between them. Had the pleasure of meeting with Dan again – way overdue 🙂

And yes:
I officially attended 6 sessions AND looked at the booths, had talks and what not – The session counter disagrees and stays at 4 (although I went to sessions on Monday and Tuesday as well (maybe the damn gizmo is busted?)
I choose to call this a personal success 😄

Another success was to finally meet the legendary Ethan in person – also way overdue 🙂

German Evening 🇩🇪🍻

After the sessions, the “German Evening” wrapped up the day perfectly.

Relaxed atmosphere, great conversations, lots of laughter, and exactly the kind of peer exchange that reminds you why events like this still matter — even in times of endless online meetings and webinars.

A very good end to a long but rewarding day.

Somewhere between serious tech talks and deep architectural debates, the German with the green hat accidentally became an international photo attraction. Some folks kept stopping, smiling, and snapping pictures – presumably unsure whether I am a mascot, a local landmark, or a limited-edition TechJam-Animal. And honestly, that kind of fits the lesson of the day: if you only look at things in black and white, you miss the good stuff. Sometimes all it takes is a bright green hat (and a big grin) to remind us that tech – and life – needs a bit more color to really make sense.

Day 3 verdict

✔ solid, interactive sessions
✔ strong technical credibility from speakers
✔ very Juniper-heavy (in a good way)
✔ AI hype still present – but easier to filter
✔ excellent community and hallway discussions
✔ great evening with colleagues and peers

Day 3 didn’t try to outshine Day 2 — and that was fine. Instead, it reinforced what TechJam does best: bringing knowledgeable people together and enabling real technical exchange.

Now let’s see how this all wraps up – but one thing is clear already:
The people made this event.

Netzwerkonkel — still standing. 😉