Mikrotik RouterBoard and Ubiquiti Networks Routing and Switching Solutions

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1

I am interested to hear opinions on Mikrotik and Ubiquiti Networks routing
and switching products. I know both hardware providers are widely deployed
in WISP networks, but I am less interested in their wireless solutions and
more in their wired products.

I know most of their switches and routers are software based, but that
might not necessarily be a bad thing since everyone is going to SDN
anyways. Their products are 1/10th or less of the cost of
the equivalent Cisco/Juniper products.

How stable and feature rich are both of their platforms? How do both of
their command line interfaces compare to Cisco or Juniper? Is it easy to
train a Cisco tech how to use a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti Networks product?

*Ubiquiti Networks software is based on a version of Vyatta I believe. As
many of you know Vyatta was bought by Brocade. I have heard that Vyatta is
very Juniper OS like. *Ubiquiti just release a line of switches that have
an amazing price and seem to support wire speed switching. Their EdgeRouter
is supposedly faster than Mikrotiks solutions. They are also traded on the
stock market, and seem to be doing well as a company.
http://www.ubnt.com/products/

Mikrotik also seems to make routers and switches. I am not sure what their
software is based on, but it does support advanced features such as MPLS.
Not sure about their switches, but they seem to be dirt cheap! What is
their command line interface like? I couldn't find any financial
information on this company, but they seem to be located in Latvia?
http://routerboard.com/

Does anyone have any meaningful insight to both companies? Why haven't they
made a dent in the switching and router market with their amazing price
points? Am I missing something here?

2

Should we say, both products are an acquired taste ?

:slight_smile:

Are they perfect, no, but then what is ?
Do they do the Job, yes.
Do they work well ? yes.
Do they do everything under the sun ? No... but then what does ?
Each has it's own set of peculiarities.

However, what actually sets them apart from everything else is, their power consumption, Environmental Tolerance, performance and flexibility.

While they are not Consumer Grade devices, and definitely need a fair amount of Network/Routing/Tech knowledge to configure and deploy properly, some will argue that they are not Carrier Grade Either..

However they are a great 'tool' in a service provider's network.
When used properly, and configured properly, they provide a un-comparable advantage vs most other alternatives in the market place.

To use them, and deploy them widely, one has to feel comfortable is dealing with 'perceived opensource' products and deal with "you cannot have an immediate fix for your problem ".

Once you get comfortable in understanding the nature of the hardware / software platform along with the choices available, it is hard to justify purpose built appliances which carry a hefty price tag ( which is typically justified / justifiable by the amount of hand-holding / support / and dumbed down configuration interface included with them).

We consider these devices to be a good combination of open-source software with reliable, mass produced hardware, without a large price tag..

Regards

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet & Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, FL 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232

Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: Support@Snappytelecom.net

3

I am interested to hear opinions on Mikrotik and Ubiquiti Networks routing
and switching products. I know both hardware providers are widely deployed
in WISP networks, but I am less interested in their wireless solutions and
more in their wired products.

I know most of their switches and routers are software based, but that
might not necessarily be a bad thing since everyone is going to SDN
anyways. Their products are 1/10th or less of the cost of
the equivalent Cisco/Juniper products.

Ubiquiti routers use Cavium chips so they are not 100% software solutions,
having a bit of programmable hardware support.
Although most Mikrotik products are 100% software-based, their flagship
router nowadays, CCR, also has similar hardware acceleration from Tilera.

How stable and feature rich are both of their platforms? How do both of
their command line interfaces compare to Cisco or Juniper? Is it easy to
train a Cisco tech how to use a Mikrotik or Ubiquiti Networks product?

Mikrotik RouterOS is very unstable, notably on dynamic routing scenarios.
Wireless and BRAS-type solutions under RouterOS work fine, but routing has
been a challenge since they moved from Quagga to XORP due to licensing
issues; Mikrotik uses a lot of open source but published very little code,
drawing extensive criticism from the open-source community. Although it's
unknown to me if they are still using XORP, whatever they use still has
flaws.

Mikrotik CLI resembles Cisco a bit, Ubiquiti resembles Juniper a lot. It's
easier to train a Cisco tech to use Mikrotik than to use Ubiquiti, but me
and most networking people I know starts liking the Juniper/Ubiquiti/Vyatta
style as soon as they discover "commit rollback" and similar features.

*Ubiquiti Networks software is based on a version of Vyatta I believe. As
many of you know Vyatta was bought by Brocade. I have heard that Vyatta is
very Juniper OS like.

VyOS is the Vyatta fork that was used to create EdgeOS, the Ubiquiti
version of it. VyOS + GUI + Hardware-offload + a feature or two = EdgeOS.
The VyOS fork occurred due to Brocade new ideas for the product, and VyOS
on x86 hardware is also an alternative for cheap and reliable replacement
of Juniper/Cisco gear.

Ubiquiti seized this opportunity and hired two, or something near,
developers from Vyatta that also have not liked Brocade guidance of the
project.

*Ubiquiti just release a line of switches that have
an amazing price and seem to support wire speed switching.

I've only used their routers so I can't comment on their switches... their
feature set looks good, but that's all I can say.

Their EdgeRouter
is supposedly faster than Mikrotiks solutions.

Mikrotik argues that CCR is faster... they use a 72-core architecture that
is actually a "marketecture" since packets usually use only the cores that
belong to the port they entered, making the uplink ports their bottleneck.

Mikrotik also seems to make routers and switches. I am not sure what their
software is based on,

Linux kernel with some open source and some not open source additions.

but it does support advanced features such as MPLS.
Not sure about their switches, but they seem to be dirt cheap!

Mikrotik switches are just home-gateway class, stay away from any serious
use.

What is
their command line interface like? I couldn't find any financial
information on this company, but they seem to be located in Latvia?

They started with ISP wireless software for at the time commodity radios
and moved to making their own gear. Their products have good market
penetration in Eastern Europe and in Brazil, where their price points
enabled lots of small operators to build wireless networks.

Does anyone have any meaningful insight to both companies? Why haven't they

made a dent in the switching and router market with their amazing price
points? Am I missing something here?

Mikrotik people is incredibly bad at relating to other people; they always
try to prove that customers that point failures are stupid and
they(Mikrotik) are right. Most buyers prefer to have someone that will
commit to solve problems instead of denying them. Their support forum is
public and you will find many examples of this behaviour there.

Rubens

4

Personally I have a simple matrix for routing and switching, if the customer can afford it I use Juniper, if they can afford it and really want Cisco then I will use Cisco. If the customer wants to put something in that will "just work" for years to come I use Juniper. If they want the cheapest routing solution that will do the job I will use MikroTik. If I was building a service provider that was not huge out of my own money then I would use Juniper switches and MikroTik routing/BNG. I have actually found MikroTik to be very stable and scalable over the years and I have had great support from them. In the early years (10 years ago) I saw some BGP instability under load, but not for several years. MikroTik's also make a great CPE device (Ethernet only). I have not used MikroTik switches so can't comment on them.

cheers

I am interested to hear opinions on Mikrotik and Ubiquiti Networks
routing and switching products. I know both hardware providers are
widely deployed in WISP networks, but I am less interested in their
wireless solutions and more in their wired products.

I know most of their switches and routers are software based, but that
might not necessarily be a bad thing since everyone is going to SDN
anyways. Their products are 1/10th or less of the cost of the
equivalent Cisco/Juniper products.

Ubiquiti routers use Cavium chips so they are not 100% software solutions, having a bit of programmable hardware support.
Although most Mikrotik products are 100% software-based, their flagship router nowadays, CCR, also has similar hardware acceleration from Tilera.

5

I ported one of our Juniper SRX configs to an EdgeRouter Lite and it was a
relatively painless experience. I benchmarked the end results and it would
do ~1gbps without breaking much of a sweat. Not bad at all for a <$100 box.

We keep some on the shelf, just in case of an emergency. At that price, why
not?

No large scale and/or long term deployments as of yet, which is where the
wheat is separated from the chaff.

6

EdgeRouter only support "hardware accelerated" routing with limited
features. If you start playing with firewall filters, gre tunnels etc you
would have to be careful about how they decrease your performance.

I personally tried to use a edgerouter to replace my j2350 with 300mbps
traffic. I first tried it at home to replace a NS5GT, But some
not-so-obvious problem has made me lost patient during the trail. My plan
to use it to replace j2350 is shelved for now..

I personally feel like at this level of traffic, A entry level of linux
server (like dell r210) with adequate domain knowledge is the best
combination. It would happily do most stuff you throw at it, if you know
how to use it. Entry level hardware solution tries to hide details from
user, because they want to target clueless consumers, but it sounds like a
PITA for me. If I had to learn new stuff, i better spend my time on some
real industrial stuff (like m7i/m10i ).

7

I personally feel like at this level of traffic, A entry level of linux
server (like dell r210) with adequate domain knowledge is the best
combination. It would happily do most stuff you throw at it, if you know
how to use it. Entry level hardware solution tries to hide details from
user, because they want to target clueless consumers, but it sounds like a
PITA for me. If I had to learn new stuff, i better spend my time on some
real industrial stuff (like m7i/m10i ).

General purpose servers are usually good performers, but more
network-centric x86 hardware is available, such as:
http://www.serveru.us/en/

And running VyOS on those servers, although requiring to learn some new
stuff, might prove handy due to nice features in device management.
Forgetting to add command lines to /etc/rc.d start-up files is a common
cause for issues using general purpose operating systems, and you will its
CLI very close to the real industrial stuff.

Rubens

8

I have played around with the Edgerouter ER-5. It's a fairly immature product compared to Cisco and Juniper. One of the bigger problems is that they don't really release fixes for earlier versions, instead they keep releasing new versions, combining new features and bug fixes in the same new release.

My recommendation is to read the forums they have where people do bug reporting, and after 15-30 minutes I think you will have a fairly good idea about the product, and if it might suit you.

For a simpler setup with static IPv4/IPv6 routing and perhaps even OSPF, that wasn't touched much after installation, I'd say it's fine. It's a powerful little box. It has some features most home gateways do not, and it lacks some features some of the highend ones have.

They're attractively priced, buy one and try it out!

9

Another thing to consider is how you feel about the configuration.
Mikrotik has a more polished GUI and command subset. UBNT is still
working things out. A lot of what you have to to do with the UBNT line
has to still be done in command line. If you are cool with that then not
a big deal. The RouterOS is a pretty mature product and has a good
backing of forums, wiki, and other things. Not saying uBNT doesn¹t, just
not as mature.

  Justin

10

Le 12/08/2014 17:15, Justin Wilson a �crit :

  Another thing to consider is how you feel about the configuration.
Mikrotik has a more polished GUI and command subset. UBNT is still
working things out. A lot of what you have to to do with the UBNT line
has to still be done in command line. If you are cool with that then not
a big deal. The RouterOS is a pretty mature product and has a good
backing of forums, wiki, and other things. Not saying uBNT doesn�t, just
not as mature.

May we discuss IPv6 support ? Last time I checked, UBNT was lagging
behind...

Denis

11

UBNT wireless operating system, AirOS, is lagging behind. UBNT router
operating system, EdgeOS, has extensive IPv6 support in the command line
interface. GUI has some IPv6 support (
http://wiki.ubnt.com/IPv6_-_GUI_Options).

Rubens

12

I am interested to hear opinions on Mikrotik and Ubiquiti Networks routing
and switching products. I know both hardware providers are widely deployed
in WISP networks, but I am less interested in their wireless solutions and
more in their wired products.

Probably not the experiences you are looking for, but I replaced my
home CPE (a Netscreen SSG) with a Ubiquiti Edge Router -- there was a
very small learning curve (their CLI is different -- feels like
somewhat less polished JunOS to me, some simply things like completion
don't work), but after 15 minutes or so was all set. Sine then it has
remained perfectly stable, has a pretty GUI in case you want a quick
graph of bandwith, etc.

We have also used them when building the IETF network to start
pre-announcing the space (we go to the location a few weeks early,
test the circuits and BGP peerings, and then start announcing the
space - this helps some with some geo-location systems). We have also
used them when cutting over the guest rooms (when we cut over hotel
guest rooms to the IETF infrastructure and space, we sometimes
continue to route and NAT the hotels (RFC1918) space for a while so
that folk who still have a DHCP address can continue to work until
their lease expires).

W

13

Denis Fondras <xxnog@ledeuns.net> writes:

May we discuss IPv6 support ? Last time I checked, UBNT was lagging
behind...

I've been running an IPv6 tunnel (<cough> FIOS) with one end being
Mikrotik and the other being UBNT (ER-Lite) since January 2013. The
UBNT is in a fairly simple-minded configuration so I can't speak to
things like VRRP, OSPFv3, etc. The Mikrotik is in the datacenter...
speaks OSPF[v3] and BGP to Cisco stuff. No difficulties, though I'm
pretty sure I didn't create/configure the tunnel via the GUI.

-r