Engaged company to install new internet and network connections for our private business Sydney Australia, so we put out for a RFQ (request for quote) to around 3 local business network installation companies. All three Sydney companies returned to us with quotes for CISCO branded network routers and wireless access points which were all very similar in pricing.
During discussions with one of the Providers, who seemed more genuinely interested in landing our business whilst wanting to help to lower the cost they offered the installation using Microtik routers and wifi equipment. The company seemed fairly reputable however, I’ve just never had experience dealing with Microtik before, and only really dealing with network equipment from CISCO, HUAWEI & Ceragon.
Little uncertain whether these bits of equipment will be sufficient and proven to work OK and securely, please don’t roast me, as I’m working in our IT department and only exposed to more of the mainstream type phone and network type equipment like the bigger brands.
Some questions which you could answer.
Are they fairly secure? - I heard Australian Telco’s were considering removing HUAWEI brand network equipment before apparently China have backdoors into the equipment.
Support? - Do I need to engage the same company under a maintenance contract.
Just your overall opinion, are there many technicians who can support these routers in Sydney Australia?
If a company is offering you a Mikrotik product solution, then that tells me you are talking to somebody with a greater than average understanding about networks.
Cisco for routers and switches is always a safe decision
Mikrotik for a wireless solution is always one of the top two best decisions. (((Cisco for wireless is not even in the top 10)))
FYI - I currently manage thousands of Mikrotiks in my network.
Yes Mikrotik RouterOS is secure. As long as you know how to configure it properly (as with every other vendor).
There are no known backdoors of any kind on Mikrotik RouterOS. But since it is closed source product no one can be 100% sure.
Only with open source products you can be certain that they do not contain backdoors, by checking the source code.
Mikrotik’s support is bad. You will have to contract Mikrotik consultants for support. That would cover mainly configuration issues.
If you encounter a bug within ROS then only Mikrotik can fix it and that can take from days to months (if not years).
Though an experienced consultant might be able to workaround the bug by changing the configuration. It depends on the bug of course and on what features you will be using.
My overall opinion about RouterOS is that it’s awesome. Bugs may creep in from version to version and their support is bad, but it has the most intuitive UI and CLI I have ever used in a router. I manage many dozens of Mikrotiks and I don’t see myself changing them to anything else anytime soon (unless I need something very specific that cannot be accomplished with ROS).
Depending on the features you need and the availability you need, Mikrotik RouterOS may not be the right choice for you.
For example there is no inherent HA (high availability) support on ROS. But that can be dealt with depending on what type of HA you require.
On the WiFi front, I personally don’t like NV2 (Mikrotik’s TDMA solution) at all. Especially on PtP links. I prefer Nstreme which performs way better on multihop setups and TCP traffic, but its support is pretty much dead for years now and it doesn’t perform anywhere near as stable as it did for 802.11a. So 802.11n and 802.11ac with nstreme, are very prone to disconnects. Any new developments are solely done on NV2.
That said, not many other vendors have the wireless support that Mikrotik has. Maybe Ubiquiti but I haven’t used their equipment much so I don’t have an opinion. I would definitely not use Cisco for WiFi. That’s for sure.
I think he is requiring indoor WiFi, not links. That is a bit of a different animal.
I don’t have experience with MikroTik AP’s doing indoor WiFi roaming, I sometimes hear complaints here, but it
appears that roaming is a bit of an afterthought in WiFi and Cisco does not work 100% either.
In any case I would get a contract to at least configure the system in operational state, and probably also a
maintenance contract for at least the first year so the company can correct configuration mistakes without you
having to enter into discussion about if this was part of the initial contract or is additional maintenance e.g.
because of changed insights.
You need to have them make a good plan for coverage of your floor area, and be prepared to maybe have
an additional AP mounted somewhere when coverage turns out to be poor.