Intel® x86 CPU complex with 8-GB (DDR4 2400 MT/s) memory, and 16 GB of flash and external USB 3.0 SSD pluggable storage slot to host containers
Sure these are 64-bit CPU’s, New 1.8-GHz x86 quad-core CPU for the CAT9300 , the CAT9400 has 4-core 2.4Ghz
So yes … they pack a lot of performance.
So yes … they pack a lot of performance.
Should jolly well hope so for £3,500!! Do Mikrotik do a 48 port switch? I can find MikroTik CRS328-24P so would need two for £750. Serious question, what extra does the Cisco Catalyst 9300 bring to the table?
stacking, stack-power, SDN (Simplified device deployment//Unified management of wired and wireless networks//Network virtualization and segmentation//Group-based policies//Context-based analytics) POE+ and 60Watt UPOE (Cisco Universal Power over Ethernet)
SD-Access Embedded Wireless => So a Cisco 9800 Wireless LAN controller can be installed as a software packages on the 9300 for small deployments (200 AP’s / 4000 clients)
Some advanced security AES256 for MACSEC
…
Mikrotik has a 48-port model. Their topmodel : CRS354-48P-4S+2Q+RM (Layer 2 !! If you attempt some Layer3 the performance suffers … a lot, the performance stats don’t look pretty)
So yeah, 2 different products for different markets I would say. I would not put the Cat9300 for an office switch for example, waaaaay too expensive for that. But it all depends on the requirements.
For context (because i’ll probably be called a “Cisco hater” 
I am a currently certified CCNA and CCNP R&S.
I’ve not been really impressed with Cisco’s recent CAT9K, Nexus 9K or ASR9K offerings. They aren’t competitive to Arista, Aruba and Juniper and Cisco’s software quality is probably the worst it’s ever been in the 21 years i’ve been working on Cisco equipment.
We have clients that use ASR, CAT9K and N9K and it’s seriously overpriced for what you’re getting. And don’t even get me started on the NCS series…we recently had to move a 200G / 20 Node service provider transport ring over to Nokia because the bugs were so bad on Cisco NCS. The licensing is awful too…it’s insanely expensive - even for the clients I work with that spend millions or tens of millions of dollars on their network budget annually.
I tend to use MIkroTik when there is a product that fits the use case I need, but if there is something outside of the current MIkroTik product family, i’ll use whitebox like Edge Core, Dell and Delta/Agema or Nokia, Juniper, Arista or Extreme/Dell.
Cisco peaked about 5 to 10 years ago and they’ve been in a slow decline ever since.
True that I consider Cisco today more really as a software company, where 5-10 years ago “hardware” was more the focus with monolithic software designs.
Agree on the licensing too, you almost need a phd to understand that (same with Microsoft etc) and pricing.
Like you say, sooo much equipment out there to “fit” the needs of customer / project. What a joy there is so much to choose from.
They certainly are trying hard to become a software and services company and they recently discussed the idea of buying core network hardware “as a service” in response to the stock falling. I think many customers are tired of the “As a Service model” mainly due to public cloud. “XaaS” creates large OPEX budgets at a time when companies are trying to lower OPEX.
This is why I see a huge value in MikroTik and have been a fan for almost a decade…in the example I gave, the company was prepared to spend $200K CAPEX and the same workload was handled by $5K. Spend part of the difference on training or outside help and the company will still save significant amounts of money while providing the same level of service.
It’s true that many companies still want the “fuzzy warm blanket” of 24/7/365 support whenever it is needed, but we are starting to see that attitude change as budgets get smaller due to the global pandemic.
Aside - anyone else think that massive PoE switches are on the danger list with the use of physical handsets being on the wane? My largest client moved office just before the pandemic and I finally got them to dump the handsets. They’ve gone pure Teams telephony with USB headsets and/or using their mobile. So the PoE requirement was just six PoE access points in an office of 80.
We (well, our customers) use PoE+ mainly for powering Wireless AP’s
These Wifi6 AP’s are packed with technology and consume up to 30Watts of power (hence PoE+)
I’m now also busy facilitating the onboarding of 100+ advanced AI IP-camera’s on the network (FullHD,4K,image-recognition onboard etc) and they also draw some power 
And then there is Cisco UPOE / 802.3bt delivering up to 90Watts of power! Many applications on IoT, powering displays, LED display arrays for office lightning.
“phones on the desk” are gone already for some time now.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271853/worldwide-net-sales-of-cisco-systems-since-2006/
In 2020, Cisco’s revenue amounted to 49.3 billion U.S. dollars
In the first quarter of 2020, Cisco had a share of 52 percent of the global market Ethernet switch market, whilst Huawei occupied just over eight percent of the market. Ethernet switches are an integral piece of information technology (IT) infrastructure, capable of receiving, processing, and transmitting data between two devices connected by a physical layer. At their most basic, switches are able to forward data selectively to one or more connected devices on the same network. In this way, Ethernet switches can control the flow of traffic passing through a network, maximizing the network’s efficiency and security. More advanced Ethernet switches, called managed switches, are also capable of providing additional functions, such as network load balancing, address translation, or data encryption and decryption.
In the first quarter of 2020, Cisco had a share of 52 percent of the global market Ethernet switch market,
I know that switches can have all sorts of features what with all the layers, VLANs etc. But don’t the majority of then end up just switching packets as fast as possible around the LAN? Now routers and firewalls - they are very different beasts.
“phones on the desk” are gone already for some time now.
Hmm, I’m not so sure although one plus (ha!) of the pandemic is that desk phones have rarely followed people home and their business has continued to communicate. I got a gold star for recommending my client got rid of them - lucky timing…
Cisco’s market share in switches and routers was 51% in Q1, meaning that for eight of the last twelve quarters it has been over the 50% mark. Across the three main markets, Cisco’s Q1 share was 57% for Ethernet switches, 65% for enterprise routers and 35% for service provider routers.May 28, 2020
The point I was trying to make, poorly, is that my suspicion is that a vast majority of Cisco switches are underused, functionality wise. In fact, most switches are just, err, rather boring switching devices delivery packets around the network.
So technically they are x64 CPUs.
Thanks boys again…we all know CISCO is one way to go… (but not mine…) but this is not idea of topic- more focus on MT! Do you have large scale network running on MT? What i need to consider going with MT?
But as i read…
TOPIC is still hot so post your experience and opinions!
There’s nothing hot about this topic.
You say you’re from Latvia, give MikroTik a call to help you choose the hardware based on your not yet mentioned requirements (since MikroTik is a Latvian company, as you know already, right?).
Unless you’re not from there and everything you’ve said here is complete .. well.. you know the word (your replies aren’t in your favor either).
And this “partners are very skeptic…” smells fishy too, I think that “your partners” are only skeptic about your ability to handle that deployment. And IF you lack the knowledge to handle it, you shouldn’t. Or else you’ll blame the hardware in the end if you don’t know how to set it up and nobody will be happy ← valid no matter which way you go (MikroTik/Cisco/etc).
You could run a network with TP-Links or Repotecs and have stacks of replacements ready to swap if they fail, lol. But, again:
There are lots of ISPs and WISPs out there using MikroTik equipment (or even the above mentioned TP-Link and Repotec) how is that going to help your case though? It won’t.
Mikrotik is nice and very good but it’s missing it’s own Central and Remote Management Solution like the bigger Companies like Cisco, HP, Ubiquity and even Barracuda have.
Configuration of these devices is done Remotely from this Central Management Platform.
This is a point they really have to tackle before they’re devices will be massively used in very large environments.
They’re still missing Stacked Switches like Dell has (there you can have up to 8 switches stacked into 1 big switch).
But there new products are getting more performant and piece by piece they’re working on it to fill the GAP between the bigger Ones.
Some mikrotik devices would be very nice, if they would DO the things they should DO. But many times, they dont.
Lets take for example the switch CRS354, a device with 48 x 1 gbps port. This device would be use in businees, critical, enterprise etc . Usually home users dont need such devices. This should be a simple devices, as design. A device that, besides the options that routerOS offer, should forward traffic to other equipment/servers etc. But many times, this device fails and no traffic is forwarded. This is a 4 month old issue, but Mikrotik cant/wont fix it, due to the fact that many customers issue with the switches.
So…would you trust this vendor to deploy their hardware in a major project?
Or would you prefer an equipment with less features but that would actually work and do the job that was made for ?
It depends what you need. Which products would you like to buy?
Thanks all!
I deside to go with MT devices in my LAN network, but on gateway it seems i will go with Palo Alto.