I agree, using 32bit software in 2024 is kinda ridiculous.
Funny thing today, regarding normal home user and Mikrotik configuration.
I installed ax2 at my parents house about a year ago and brother wanted to change SSID and password from default provided by Mikrotik.
He opened winbox, clicked few times around GUI and said that he don’t want to mess with that. Then he asked me why Mikrotik don’t have normal home router. He was shocked when i told him ax2 is normal home router. He just said that is not normal router.
He was expecting “normal” wireless settings. SSID, encryption, password, channel. He did find quickset but as i created 2 vlans and some other stuff i told him not to touch that because there is a possibility that router stop working.
I take a different view: Mikrotik is what happens when you let engineers run a company. The results are predictable.
They just keep adding features that are mostly done & move onto new shine things before the last thing was actually done. This lack of focus on quality/completeness shows in recent software releases.
I more blame a complete lack of product/program management to “rationalize” the feature set, and incomplete/piss-poor documentation that basically only a reference manual, not a practical guide to anything.
e.g. Have you ever see someone with “Product Manager” as their title in ANY of there videos? Or anyone really… explain their strategy/direction/roadmap in them? If a new feature is released – how anyone test, even internally, if there is no documentation on how it should work is my worry!
But if it’s a lack of resources… WTF are they building a multi-platform client? While I’m not in @DarkNate “throw out it all out” camp… I’m not sure the world needs yet another repackaging around same config scheme. And @normis acts as if surprising, or “teasing”, customers is a good thing; see winbox icon on a Mac:
When you have software quality issue presently – the last thing should be doing is re-inventing the wheel! I’m not sure a Mac/linux native admin app helps when upgrades fails or run into bugs.
The bigger issue is simple stuff is VERY often actually quite a number of steps & even then you could run into some gotcha/bug. Yet no one cares.
Depends, not all engineers are like that, many engineers have good business decision-making skillset, prioritisation skillset and seeing a project from start to end to release for public use. In fact, some of the big multi-million dollar companies I know and worked for, were founded, operated, structured and built by engineers.
However, in MikroTik’s situation, it seems this is not the case, and they likely should have a proper management that’s not just two engineers who are nerding about the “Next big thing” like storage on a router.
There is a reason there are different engineering disciplines. Engineering Management or Industrial engineering is more geared towards project management, covering forecasting, budgeting, scheduling and statistics, and knowing enough about a wide scope of engineering disciplines to be able to understand risks, complexity, delays etc…
Or, at least START by having some method to allow the V7 RouterBOOT to install (or at least boot) an alternative Linux disto. But I don’t think the NIH mentality is going away.
Personal note: consider following an MBA. See if there are universities/schools near you where you can follow it, if possible evening/weekend classes.
Don’t go for online course where you basically buy the degree, you will not learn anything from it.
My personal view.
I’m fortunately in a position where papers (certs, degrees etc) have no value to me for prospects in job or businesses opportunities. However, knowledge is key, got any links for free MBA full course materials? Video playlists or something? Specifically for Engineering management related MBA.
I am glad that I haven’t seen anyone with the title “product manager” in their videos yet. You often come across such “product managers” in videos from companies like Cambium, Grandstream, and others. In reality, they are pure salespeople and not actual company-internal “product managers”. MikroTik, if I understand correctly, avoids this sales layer and relies on distributors. Sure, MikroTik could involve distributors in video production, but they are not local and can’t come to their studio.
I would quite like Mikrotik to stick with its current direction. In my opinion, the reality is that these are not suitable devices for people who don’t have a good practical grasp of IP, Ethernet, routing, bridging, VLAN and WiFi fundamentals.
Having done enterprise networking since the days when variable length subnet masks were rare, I’ve seen several generations of network kit and operating systems. I don’t think Mikrotik is wildly different. Where it is different from a lot of high grade gear is, it’s not expensive whilst still exposing a wide variety of network options, which is great! What it’s not similar to is domestic gear!
There are issues of course, and for me the most frustrating thing is wide dispersion of key information, e.g. follow manual A from start to finish, but be aware of a critical fact buried in manual H (but not pointed out in manual A)
Manual H is not really a problem, since the instructions in it are anyway only applicable to devices that have ARM processor (64 and not 32 bit), and PoE output, but only those with redundant power supplies, but not those that are running version 6.79.12, if the factory software was earlier than 6.11.4, and can only be applied on wednesday nights, if there is full moon (this of course only applies to indoor devices).
Thee is anyway a post on the forum about a possible way to workaround the issue until fixed in a next release ( a ticket was opened three years ago and Mikrotik’s response was that they will fix it, but unfortunately no ETA).
Who even talks about “Cambium, Grandstream, and others”? These are not carrier-class network vendors, nobody cares.
MikroTik sells boxes with ASICs that are advertised for 100Gbps ASIC switching, that’s a foot in the door of carrier-class network engineering. And you need product managers, good ones.
I’ve dealt with Nokia product managers, and they know their shit, they know layer 1 to layer 7.
MikroTik IS wildly different, I work with MikroTik, Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Huawei, Cumulus Linux in data centre and service provider domain, MPLS/EVPN/VXLAN/eBGP DC designs, all the good stuff.
MikroTik UI/UX is just plain terrible. No streaming telemetry, no gRPC, no OpenConfig, no YAML/JSON-like API input/output, CLI in/out, no root access like Juniper or Nokia SR-Linux.
Enterprise is not carrier-class networking, nor even DC-grade… I bet you never even deployed eBGP driven IPv6-only EVPN anycast gateways in your “enterprise” segments.
@DarkNate
IMO Mikrotik has ZERO interest in CARRIER-CLASS networking … MikroTik Market is 1.. Third World entrepreneur’s 2.. SMB and 3.. SOHO
And in those markets MikroTik’s Distributor Business Model has served them from my perspective extremely well
