Kicking off the new year to reiterate my MikroTik wish list…while there are many things i’d love to see in ROSv7, these are my top 2.
Segment Routing - In the service provider and data center space, MPLS is rapidly moving over to SR-MPLS because it simplifies both label exchange and traffic engineering considerably. When using traditional MPLS signaling, LDP and RSVP are required along with the IGP. SR-MPLS combines all of those functions into the IGP. Traffic engineering capabilities are fantastic because the source of traffic can be used in the policy decision and you no longer have to maintain state throughout the entire path as is the case with RSVP-TE.
IS-IS - I think IS-IS is one of the smartest choices that MIkroTik could make as a routing protocol addition. Having worked on MikroTik networks for more than 10 years, i’ve seen scaling issues with OSPF. IS-IS even in other vendor networks has less overhead and would pair well with the low-power and low-cost processors that MikroTik uses in routers and switches. It also operates at Layer 2 which makes it easy to transport IPv4 or IPv6 using the same process and is much harder to attack since there is no L3 required for adjacency/neighbor to form.
Both of these protocols pair well together as SR-MPLS is an extension of the IGP. I think we would see significant adoption by DC and SP operators of MikroTik devices (as opposed to Cisco/Juniper) if these two protocols were added to ROSv7.
+1, this would be extremely useful in the wisp industry. At least to me it’s much simpler to understand than MPLS, so would lower the barrier to entry for wisps to build proper routed networks.
I have asked in the past and was told IS-IS was not on the roadmap due to lack of demand. Hopefully this thread can show Mikrotik how much demand is really out there.
However, I also do want to see RouterOS v7 stabilized. I would be thrilled if we could move our core BGP routers to ROS 7 in a years time or so. We need working MPLS first for that, and for the existing routing stack to have stabilized enough.
I’ve said this so many times that I think I’m starting to go crazy. I would really prefer RouterOS 7 just use FRR for its routing engine; that way they get all the nice features we want, such as IS-IS and SR “for free”. Hopefully the rest of the community realizes this and pushes for it before it’s too late.
I would really prefer RouterOS 7 just use FRR for its routing engine; that way they get all the nice features we want, such as IS-IS and SR “for free”. Hopefully the rest of the community realizes this and pushes for it before it’s too late.