hardware sizing, which board is appropriate?

Hardware MikroTik hardware general
1

Hi, All … I have the following scenario and would appreciate your input as I wondering what kind of RouterBoard would be appropriate.

I intend to use RouterOS on RouterBroad in a network of 100 LAN users who want to access the Internet.
This device will assume the following roles:

  • Router (7 network segments, using static route)
  • HotSpot Gateway
  • DHCP server

It’d be using local authentication, and I need to be able to track bandwidth quota for each users.
When they exceeded their quota, they shouldn’t be able to login and access the Internet.

For the above scenario, would RB192 doing fine? or do I need RB with highest CPU available? or a PC?

TIA
Aldo

2

Anyone?

Does RB192 has enough CPU power for the task?

3

While the RB192 might handle what your looking to do depending on how much and what type of traffic your users will be doing. I would use one of the new higher power boards like the RB333 or RB600.

-Gerard

4

Use x86 like P3 1000Mhz.

5

One question occurs to me.

How much bandwidth are you planning to use? The lower the processor the less bandwidth it can handle. This is not obviously the only factor. Each action you take to handl traffic, such as mangle, queues, firewall filter, dude, and so on taxes the processor a little more. This is all part of the system design process, that you are going through now.

So an OC3 (222mbps) would need a decent PC server to handle the task, at full speed, but a 256k DSL may be able to get away with an RB133.

Also the LAN traffic is an issue here as you want to have different subnets. Are you planning to route any traffic locally? In that case you may find that multiple demands of 100mbps may tax the router…

Some more insight to what you want to do may help us to help you.

Rgds

Alex

6

Thanks guys for your input. I appreciate it.

The bandwidth is nowhere near OC3. The site has 2 ISP connections 10/2 & 7/1 down/up.
I don’t intend to route traffic internally. To keep things simple, I have this connectivity in mind:
Desktop → Router (Hotspot gateway & DHCP server) → Pfsense (auto WAN fail-over) → Internet
All wired, no wireless.

At this point, I lean towards using x86 with P3 or P4 processor.
I thought old 1U DL320 Proliant or IBM eseries would be suiteable for the job, but later realized that they are using SCSI.

And to build new system, it’s like hit or miss with newer components.
I used motherboard selector at Intel website, and selected IDE & Intel Pro 1000 as criteria.
http://mbsg.intel.com/mbsg/compare.aspx?orgID=0&aryAttrID=179,76

It gives me 9 motherboards. Is it safe to say that all 9 mobo will work with RouterOS?
Are there other criteria that I need to be aware of?

7

Hey there…

If hardware compatibility is a concern you could take a look at these items:

(this is not a sales plug, I have never used these products, and dont know Dennis Burgess.)

The new RB1000 due to launch this month at http://www.routerboard.com or the product found here, the powerouter: http://www.mikrotikrouter.com/

Rgds

Alex

8

That powerrouter does seem nifty. Does anyone here have one?

9

Who’s hardware is used in the powerouter?

10

We make some too, look here
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/CableFree.Stephen/CableFreeGigabitRouters
which use Intel mobile CPUs, up to Core2Duo 2GHz+
I imagine the RB1000 would be a lot cheaper when it’s launched of course.

Regards