Hi there,
We’re a small isp and a long time Mikrotik user, starting from simple RB150 boxes as customer fw-nat and now using CRS and CCR at fiber ring and core. Great boxes if you know the limitations.
We have been happily running the ring as L2 with simple fine tuned RSTP, partly because we needed to set it up fast. This has worked well and with no problems whatsoever. In the event of a loss of connectivity somewhere along the ring, reconvergence takes place in about a second and nobody will notice. There are not that many sites in this ring, around 10 and customers connect to these sites as vlans which then get transported to the core CCR. There are no wireless links, everything is fiber or copper.
We’re in no hurry to change something that works, but I like to entertain the idea of making it L3, since that will scale better etc.
I would like to hear comments from you guys who operate a ring/similar network with Mikrotik devices:
- What hardware are you using (CCR/CRS..)?
- What protocols/methods (BGP/OSPF/MPLS/VXLAN/…)?
- How stable is it?
- What would you do differently now?
I know with the finally here and hopefully at some point stable ROS7 there are all kinds of L3HW promises for CRS boxes, so if we wait enough, that might be one option. We already have the CRS’s in place. Anyone tried that yet or is it too soon?
Or we could put CCR boxes on all sites and basically run whatever routing or tunneling with them.
I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!