Hi All,

Good day, i'm fairly new in mikrotik gear but not really new in networking in general so to speak, I'd like to seek some advice on what MT cheapo switch gear is capable of doing an inter-vlan routing I can easily do this using router on stick approach but that's not the case here. My goal is to deploy mikrotik in enterprise because of its attractive pricing. I've read a lot of heartache on this forum from various people and I want to experience this firsthand :)

My requirement is pretty basic full L3 capability with bundle SWOS and also with reasonable price for Lab purposes, for a start i'm looking into this https://mikrotik.com/product/css610_8g_2s_in is this any good or fit to my requirement?, thanks in advance guys


Cheers

Ronald

but not really new in networking in general so to speak

There is no need to ask here then :) Look at the price and at the specs in Mikrotik website and this is all you need to know.

Also I am a fan of RouterOS, but that's just personal.

EDIT: Even 16eur Mikrotik routers have full capabilities with very responsive WinBox UI. You can't go wrong with any Mikrotik device as long as you are happy with horsepower provided by a device.

You have to understand that a MikroTik switch with routing capability cannot be compared to a L3 routing switch from high end manufacturers (Cisco, Aruba, etc).
What MikroTik offers is a switch that can do full port speed switching between ports on the same VLAN.
For routing, the traffic flows to the "control processor" present on the switch chips which is designed only to run management.
So you cannot expect full port speed routing on these devices! Check the specification sheets to see how many PPS and Mbps you can switch vs route.
And, the devices that run SwitchOS (CSS, like your example) cannot route at all! You need to run RouterOS for that, on a CRS device.

Concur, the switch you linked in the first post has no routing stats (L3) and is your basic smart L2 device.
That worries me since you state on one hand L3 and then choose a totally opposite switch to discuss.

You really need to nail down your requirements FIRST..
Size of network, number of users, number of switches, ISP connection, the whole 9 yards.

I will use a Mikrotik router for just about anything.

But the switches and wireless... I get better results from other vendors.

You should read up on the features available in the different ranges:

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ ... p+Features

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... es#Summary

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... s#Features

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... Offloading

Work out what you are trying to achieve, as it may be that routing is actually better for your requirements.

Hope that helps
Nick

Yes of course offloading would bring MikroTik swiches into the same ballpark as common "L3 switches" on the market are, but it is only available in v7 beta for now.
And of course CSS switches won't have it.

I agree with gotsprings: I would not buy switches from MikroTik myself except maybe for a 10 Gbit/s L2 switch where they offer good price/performance and the lack of enterprise grade switch features is often not a problem (because you use it only in a small network between servers).

You should read up on the features available in the different ranges:

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ ... p+Features

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... es#Summary

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... s#Features

https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:C ... Offloading

Work out what you are trying to achieve, as it may be that routing is actually better for your requirements.

Hope that helps
Nick

Hey, thanks for the reference like i said I'm trying to understand if mikrotik can fit in in the enterprise. Which mean full L3 capabilities, fabric or virtual chassis in juniper terms. On my quick reading it appears that Mikrotik is not there yet, though they have a good router spec at least in papers and some real workload I just witness last week with a few thousands of PPPoE subs on one of my consulting gig that pique my interest :), not to mentioned bandwidth management and MPLS works under a thousand bucks :), thanks for the reading material this gear will surely have a niche market for what is worth!

Concur, the switch you linked in the first post has no routing stats (L3) and is your basic smart L2 device.
That worries me since you state on one hand L3 and then choose a totally opposite switch to discuss.

You really need to nail down your requirements FIRST..
Size of network, number of users, number of switches, ISP connection, the whole 9 yards.

Yeah, I think i didn't read hard enough because I was really impressed on the capability of their routers for a fraction of a cost and caught off guard in their switch gear and i'm also under the assumption that SWOS is pretty much preferred as the name implies, but I stand corrected if this was not the case there was reply on the post that suggest routerOS is much more mature than SWOS that's odd anyway, thanks for the heads up

I will use a Mikrotik router for just about anything.

But the switches and wireless... I get better results from other vendors.

Hey, thanks for the heads up I think I need to open my spider sense :) I'm scared I just bought my LHGG LTE kit last week I hope no issues will crap up on this shiny new gear ;)

Yeah, I think i didn't read hard enough because I was really impressed on the capability of their routers for a fraction of a cost and caught off guard in their switch gear and i'm also under the assumption that SWOS is pretty much preferred as the name implies, but I stand corrected if this was not the case there was reply on the post that suggest routerOS is much more mature than SWOS that's odd anyway, thanks for the heads up

It isn't really about maturity. SwOS is the simple OS for devices that has only switching capability, it can be used to configure VLANs and port memberships and some other things specific to (L2) switches.
RouterOS is the full OS which runs on all other devices (wireless APs, routers, switch/routers (CRS)). It has full routing capability in addition to configuration of switches.
The CRS devices usually can run both SwOS and RouterOS, some even in dual-boot.
But the CSS devices can run only SwOS hence they cannot route.

Only in very recent (beta) RouterOS v7 there is the possibility to configure certain (not all!) CRS switches to do wirespeed L3 routing like the common L3 switches on the market do.
The average CRS switch (and all that run stable RouterOS v6) does only wirespeed switching and does routing at the slower processor up to a couple hundred Mbit/s.

What I don't understand...

It's called ROUTEROS.

Why do people expect the wireless or switching to be anything?

My wifi manufacture has zero to do with routers.

Well, what I like about the MikroTik wifi equipment is that it actually can do routing.
When setting up a simple wireless network e.g. our AMPRnet (HAMnet) this is convenient, as the same device can be both link AP and router for the subnet.
Of course it would be even better when at the same time it performed better as a wireless device. But the MikroTik devices are better at WiFi than the competitor's devices are at routing, so the sum is still better at MikroTik.

Well, what I like about the MikroTik wifi equipment is that it actually can do routing.
When setting up a simple wireless network e.g. our AMPRnet (HAMnet) this is convenient, as the same device can be both link AP and router for the subnet.
Of course it would be even better when at the same time it performed better as a wireless device. But the MikroTik devices are better at WiFi than the competitor's devices are at routing, so the sum is still better at MikroTik.

I have hundreds of hours on caps out there, that I regret. All the time writing custom scripts and integrating the coolest things... And it's useless. Because they suck as radios.

Mikrotiks wireless drivers are crap. Shutting down in high interference areas.

The lack of standards ratified 6 years ago, is absolutely ridiculous.

When I tried to work with Mikrotik on the problems... I got one email per month. After 6 months of back and forth...
"It's your environment... There is just too much interference."

Problem was I had the same problem in like 60 places.

Replaced the Tik wireless out of pocket and the problems vanished. No more complaints. ABGN waps from 11 years ago do better in dense environments.

And while I admit... If you are
1. in the middle of nowhere
2. Have very few connections
3. Don't care about high-speed or have a slow connection.

I can make caps-man dance!!! I can do things with it I wish I could with my other vendors...

But you know what it can't do... Be a decent wifi radio I can put in and "forget about".

Well, what I like about the MikroTik wifi equipment is that it actually can do routing.
When setting up a simple wireless network e.g. our AMPRnet (HAMnet) this is convenient, as the same device can be both link AP and router for the subnet.
Of course it would be even better when at the same time it performed better as a wireless device. But the MikroTik devices are better at WiFi than the competitor's devices are at routing, so the sum is still better at MikroTik.

I have hundreds of hours on caps out there, that I regret. All the time writing custom scripts and integrating the coolest things... And it's useless. Because they suck as radios.

Mikrotiks wireless drivers are crap. Shutting down in high interference areas.

The lack of standards ratified 6 years ago, is absolutely ridiculous.



When I tried to work with Mikrotik on the problems... I got one eil per month. After 6 months of back and forth...
"It's your environment... There is just too much interference."

Problem was I had the same problem in like 60 places.

Replaced the Tik wireless out of pocket and the problems vanished. No more complaints. ABGN waps from 11 years ago do better in dense environments.

And while I admit... If you are
1. in the middle of nowhere
2. Have very few connections
3. Don't care about high-speed or have a slow connection.

I can make caps-man dance!!! I can do things with it I wish I could with my other vendors...

But you know what it can't do... Be a decent wifi radio I can put in and "forget about".

Ouch if this is true i'm going to hold my horses on this one, this is the areas i'm planning to explore specially CapsMan because it was too good in presentation that I see on various places if this thing is stable it's a big punch on aruba and cisco for sure. I was curious to ask can't they change their radio to something else and what they did to fix the issue, care to share more? sorry for a little bit off topic :)

Ouch if this is true i'm going to hold my horses on this one, this is the areas i'm planning to explore specially CapsMan because it was too good in presentation that I see on various places if this thing is stable it's a big punch on aruba and cisco for sure. I was curious to ask can't they change their radio to something else and what they did to fix the issue, care to share more? sorry for a little bit off topic :)

For better or worse, Mikrotik makes its own wifi drivers inhouse. This was a decision made a long time ago, and we don't know WHY - but that's the way it goes. RoS v7 (still an early beta) gives the impression that it will change: we already see some official drivers to WiFi. What we don't know is if they will exist side by side with the Mikrotik ones or if they will be the only option.

Come to think of it, we don't even know if older wifi hardware would get new official driver or keep a Mikrotik made one. Up until know, as far as I know, only the IPQ-4019 based hardware got these new drivers.

Firewall rules.
Access Control Lists.
Multiple SSIDs hitting different DHCP pools in the same subnet.
Per device passwords.
SSIDs that can shut off when a primary ISP goes down.
Scheduling
The ability to use mangle on wifi.
Etc
Etc

I was loving caps-man.
Until I started trying to put it under the loads my systems see.

The first thing that hit the fan was some issue with one wifi chip that was common at work. Causing the 2.4 radio to stop accepting clients. Just restarting the locked up radio would clear it for while. Not even the whole device... Just the radio.

Then I got my ass handed to me when a system was along "main street". Every weekend when the street vendors showed up with their hot spots... The caps dropped the radios entirely.

Moving on... Put it in a bar. Not even one of my bigger ones. Pass about 25 clients per radio and it got ugly fast.

Helped another company do a camp ground... Once the weather got better... Disaster.

Etc
Etc

Switched back to my other vendor, out of my own pocket, just to stop the bitching.

Well, what I like about the MikroTik wifi equipment is that it actually can do routing.
When setting up a simple wireless network e.g. our AMPRnet (HAMnet) this is convenient, as the same device can be both link AP and router for the subnet.
Of course it would be even better when at the same time it performed better as a wireless device. But the MikroTik devices are better at WiFi than the competitor's devices are at routing, so the sum is still better at MikroTik.

I have hundreds of hours on caps out there, that I regret. All the time writing custom scripts and integrating the coolest things... And it's useless. Because they suck as radios.

To be clear: I am talking about a completely different use case. Not indoor access points and CapsMan, but outdoor point-to-point links using LHG5 and WirelessWire.
2 years ago I deployed an indoor WiFi at work (34 APs) and I never even considered MikroTik.... knowing what was known already back then.
Sure it would have been very cheap, but that was not the first importance. It would have to work well.

The UBNT APs we have now are a bit more expensive than MikroTik but less expensive than Cisco etc, and they work well. There are always additional wishes, but for now they are OK. And as always, technology develops further and it is better to buy and replace after 3 years than to spend twice and much and use it for 6 years.
There normally are about 300-400 users roaming around and at peaks about 800 users. Never seen any issue due to overload etc, they only "problem" we had is that fast roaming cannot be enabled without causing compatibility issues. But MikroTik does not even OFFER fast roaming.

I doubt that it would have been a success when using cAP AC2...

Firewall rules.
Access Control Lists.
Multiple SSIDs hitting different DHCP pools in the same subnet.
Per device passwords.
SSIDs that can shut off when a primary ISP goes down.
Scheduling
The ability to use mangle on wifi.
Etc
Etc

I was loving caps-man.
Until I started trying to put it under the loads my systems see.

The first thing that hit the fan was some issue with one wifi chip that was common at work. Causing the 2.4 radio to stop accepting clients. Just restarting the locked up radio would clear it for while. Not even the whole device... Just the radio.

Then I got my ass handed to me when a system was along "main street". Every weekend when the street vendors showed up with their hot spots... The caps dropped the radios entirely.

Moving on... Put it in a bar. Not even one of my bigger ones. Pass about 25 clients per radio and it got ugly fast.

Helped another company do a camp ground... Once the weather got better... Disaster.

Etc
Etc

Switched back to my other vendor, out of my own pocket, just to stop the bitching.

Ouch that's quite an extensive barrage of issue and I can feel the pain :(, our clientele is mostly hospital and we have minor issue's with Aruba apart from the price point that's trigger me to look elsewhere for possible alternatives anyway, thanks for this valuable insight, I hope Mikrotik will learned from this customer firsthand experience learned from the mistake and fix this issues for Good because this will be a detrimental on their good name if they care.

I'm fairly new here and this really spooks me but I think it's not too late for them to win back their customer trust If only they are going to do the right thing this time, making your own driver in-house specially if you are small company is no small feat, unfortunately it's a disaster as other suggested here,

The TPLINK eap245 is a solid wifi5 performer and as gotsprings noted, for me importantly it stopped the complaining from a daughter on a macbook pro studying virtually at University plus two smartphones etc and I now get no calls for wifi issues from the Mother-in-law. In both cases replaced Capac. I would recommend you try the new 660HD tp link model designed supposedly for dense environments when available (buy and try basis one only) to compare to your aruba or other brands to see if it can handle the particular environments. In terms of routing you can pry the CCR1009 only out of my cold dead hands LOL. The MT router lineup is solid!

Well, what I like about the MikroTik wifi equipment is that it actually can do routing.
When setting up a simple wireless network e.g. our AMPRnet (HAMnet) this is convenient, as the same device can be both link AP and router for the subnet.
Of course it would be even better when at the same time it performed better as a wireless device. But the MikroTik devices are better at WiFi than the competitor's devices are at routing, so the sum is still better at MikroTik.

I have hundreds of hours on caps out there, that I regret. All the time writing custom scripts and integrating the coolest things... And it's useless. Because they suck as radios.

The UBNT APs we have now are a bit more expensive than MikroTik but less expensive than Cisco etc, and they work well. There are always additional wishes, but for now they are OK. And as always, technology develops further and it is better to buy and replace after 3 years than to spend twice and much and use it for 6 years.

I am not a fan of UniF--k.

The AV guys, Point of Sales guys, and Arcade Guys all use it.

And why do they use it?
"The greatest think about UniF--k, it allows people with zero Knowledge, Skill or Ability to deploy networks.
The worst think about UniF--k, it allows people with zero Knowledge, Skill or Ability to deploy networks."

I have one install that has been in place since 2013. About 2 years ago they decided they wanted to put in an arcade system. 3 different vendors came in and tried to "slap some UniF--k in there." In all three cases I tried to explain that the noise and client density was way outside what UniF--k can handle.

One arrogant a$$ after the next ignored my warning.

We are talking about arcades being delivered, installed, then packed up and taken away.

Finally the 3rd one cried uncle.
"Hey no problem... You need your own subnet and SSID. Sure... Tell me what you need."

Added the IPScope to the Mikrotik 2011. Added the SSID info to the ZoneDirector... Viola.

So the manager network, AV Network, Point of Sales Network and guest network got an Arcade SSID added in too. And the arcades actually worked and we're not jerked out.

The look on the arcade guy's face when I explained his WAPs just got their S--t handed to them by zf7372 a wireless N AP.

I have seen this system carry hundreds of connections at once.

You confuse the capabilities of the system with the capabilities and skills of the operators.
On a Unifi system it is equally easy to add an SSID and connect it to the same or a different VLAN. No problem at all.
The only drawback compared to MikroTik in reconfiguration is that the APs go down and up for each and every bit you change in the config.
Before, they in fact rebooted for that and requested the new config. Today, they often do not reboot, but they do disconnect everyone.
That is a bit inconvenient when you want to tweak the config during the day.
But when you know what you do (which your people apparently don't) it usually isn't a real problem.

You confuse the capabilities of the system with the capabilities and skills of the operators.
On a Unifi system it is equally easy to add an SSID and connect it to the same or a different VLAN. No problem at all.
The only drawback compared to MikroTik in reconfiguration is that the APs go down and up for each and every bit you change in the config.
Before, they in fact rebooted for that and requested the new config. Today, they often do not reboot, but they do disconnect everyone.
That is a bit inconvenient when you want to tweak the config during the day.
But when you know what you do (which your people apparently don't) it usually isn't a real problem.

Excuse me?

I pointed out that the radio was not going to function in that environment. I knew because I tried it myself when the Meraki gear failed with the Point of Sales Company a few years earlier.

The point of sales company relented and moved to the existing wifi system, and it worked for years. The arcade system worked until Covid closed the place down.

And the next time you wanna piss on my shoes...

I have worked on UniF--k since .0 release.

I am forced to deal with it pretty regularly as other trades run into issues and ask me to "help out".

I have a stack of test gear, as we buy "the latest" APs just to make sure we are current.