Hello, first post!

I need help on picking a router for an outdoor event.

Backhaul Internet will be provided by ISP with a Static IP. The router I need should be able to handle DHCP licenses for 2046 unique users on a 15min lease time. I had a previous event with short notice and had to settle on Netgear r9000/x10 with DDWRT. Unfortunately, the router began to buckle at around 500 users. The router would also need to operate in an outdoor environment in a 12U rack enclosure.

thanks,

uplink speed?
bridge speed required? (in case streaming camera across LAN)
by "user" I assume that you mean a client device on the network or hotspot user?
apart from just been a basic router, what other functions the Mikrotik needs to serve? special firewall rule, L7 filter rule, queue etc. etc.

have a look the spec and test results for the CCR1009 on Mikrotik website.

You didn't really mention in the post but is your goal to provide wireless? If that is the case, the issue isn't going to be the DHCP leases, it's going to be shared airtime with that many clients. You would have to split those user up across multiple access points.

Routers will not have much of an issue handling large amounts of leases. If you are handling 2,046 users though, you are going to run into problems over wireless (I'm assuming since you are doing an outdoor event this is about wireless).

You have to remember that the access points, depending on the chipset/hardware, can only talk to a handful devices at a time over the air. If you have 2,046 all trying to talk to a single access point you are going to have major issues with devices fighting for air time. For something like you are trying to do, you are going to need a distributed wireless system. You need to break up the clients across multiple access points and use some QoS to ensure good connectivity across all of the clients. Please do not expect to purchase a single wireless router to handle something like this. Usually for large scale events, engineers will plan out things in advance to get the best coverage.

If you are using this router for only DHCP (as in you already have a large scale wireless deployment on site), any MikroTik should be able to handle the leases. Your decision should just depend on how much traffic you are going to push. You could also get a stack of routers, vlan tag the access points and distribute the DHCP load across multiple routers.

thanks guys,

The wireless portion will be handled by 4 WAPs.

My concerns were for if the number of leases would cause any performance issues and whether it stand being in summer temperatures outside.