I would like to ask for advice regarding the best MikroTik configuration for an office network.
We have a total internet bandwidth of 100 Mbps, and it will be used by approximately 50 users. The network will be used for normal office activities such as browsing, email, cloud access, video meetings, and some streaming.
I would like to know:
What is the recommended basic configuration for this scenario?
Should I use simple queues or queue tree for bandwidth management?
Is it better to use PCQ to distribute bandwidth evenly?
What firewall rules are recommended for a network directly connected to the ISP?
Are there any best practices to maintain stability and prevent one user from consuming too much bandwidth?
I am still learning MikroTik, so I would really appreciate any suggestions, examples, or best practice configurations that you can share.
With 100Mbps I wouldn’t expect many issues just using the basic NAT and default firewall setup. The one thing that might cause problems is if a good number of the office workers aren’t actually working and decided to watch videos all day long.
I have had to deal with a problem like this once before and it was mainly people having youtube playing on their phones while they were working. We ended up setting up some mangle rules to force youtube down to 4Mbps max and that fixed the bandwidth problem.
I would be careful of trying to solve problems before you know for sure what they are. You might end up making things more complicated than they need to be.
When you have a large number of users, some queuing can work wonders for usability. PCQ is totally fine. CAKE is generally even better. Both use about the same amount of resources.
I don't think trying to identify specific types of traffic is really worth it, nor does it actually work. Distributing bandwidth (somewhat) fairly is a big step up, anything beyond that is a huge amount of work for very little benefit.
For your specific scenarion i will get Hex S 2025 and also two gigabyte switch 24 port connected to this router. Will get stable performances for your network and ISP speed. Also can handly queries without effort.
It might seem straightforward, but the minute users or devices discover that they have unique needs, then a managed switch will save your bacon. Do a requirments analysis first (use cases) for all users and devices on the network, aka printers etc, including any special or security needs for the admin, privacy for the executive staff PCs etc…..