If you guys have experience with Cisco, Juniper... Please post here what vendor`s which router is similar performance to CCR1036-12G-4S. (For example Cisco ASR1002 with bla bla modules)
I want to shock my colleagues how much cost we can safe.

I got an offer a while ago to replace our core router (because of higher bandwidth demand) with Cisco ASR 1002 and ASR-ESP (5Gbit/s);
The specs are not really near the CCR, but it´s price is more than 20 times higher.

Just a sidenote: We had to replace the router ealier than expected and did it with 1100AH-X2; No problems so far, but we will upgrade to the CCR as soon as it is tested and considered stable.

I got an offer a while ago to replace our core router (because of higher bandwidth demand) with Cisco ASR 1002 and ASR-ESP (5Gbit/s);
The specs are not really near the CCR, but it´s price is more than 20 times higher.

Just a sidenote: We had to replace the router ealier than expected and did it with 1100AH-X2; No problems so far, but we will upgrade to the CCR as soon as it is tested and considered stable.

Hi Poli, what was your previous core router? Cisco or AHx2 is your first core router?

We had a Cisco 3825 before, with 2 additional ethernet cards (ridiculous expensive) and memory extension for full-bgp;
But this one was not able to handle more than 400Mbits/s.

Thanks Poli.

Anyone please share your knowledge and experience.

Deleted because not related.

Hi Everyone,

We build networks for a living (and have our own in a couple of places) and make extensive use of the units in/at/near the core. Specific experiences:

As a rule we use the most cost effective option unless we have no choice with kit - this means the Mikrotik units feature very highly.

Using the RB1x00 series works very nicely but we've had some issues with high PPS (40+ Mbps of VoIP) often causing the units to reboot. In such cases (and for most smaller core networks) we make use of a pair of x86 boxes as core routers and we are genuinely very happy in such cases.

The single biggest issue today is the problems with BGP on Mikrotik - they sometimes keep announcing routes after a withdraw is sent - and the don't propagate default correctly (both reported and I am very hopeful on seeing these fixes in a routing-test soon *hint*hint*

The primary suggestion I make to people is to not get caught up in just how feature rich the Mikrotik platform is - rather than doing everything on one device *because you can* rather dedicate more units to specific features. As example, don't use the same unit for terminating all your PPTP/PPPoE users and let it function as DNS+DHCP+core router etc The units are reasonably priced so use more of them for specific features.

In regards the bigger units from Cisco - the ASR / 7600 series and similar often do really well in terms of line cards and module options which are simply not available on the Mikrotik platform. If you build a network smart and avoid anything not 'ethernet driven' these units can for the most part be avoided. Mikrotik interaction with Cisco on the MPLS side is reasonable and is another reason to pick ROS over most other options.

If one looks at the potential capabilities of the CCR I think that it will be a very strong contender for network providers not too caught up in the 'vendor' wars in regards to brand selection. I suspect I'd look at deploying them specifically in terms of their bandwidth management/queuing work loads.

A side note - the RB1x00 series also makes very nice 'switch' replacements for doing small scale q-in-q deployments since Cisco/Juniper/HP q-in-q capable units are a hell of a lot more expensive.

Hope this helps.

Thanks guys. My opinion is all MT routers have all kind of features even it is RB750. Only thing is we need to choose router depending on traffic load. My first MT product was RB750. We had very small branch office which has only 5Mbps internet link. In the meantime we need IPPBX, bandwidth manager, content filter, flexible firewall, many routes and strong troubleshooting tools etc... Internet link is very low but feature demand is too complex. That time we purchased RB and solved almost all. Of course Cisco also can do it. But this kind of cisco router is not for 5Mbps link and price is not for small branches.

Another case is we use Ericsson SmartEdge series router. The performance is huge big. Our router is for 30000 active broadband customers. Yes also price was huge high. But this router doesn`t support very basic feature "GRE passthrough". Also we have dynamic NAT related issue since 3 months ago even now we have only ~5000 active customers.