Unsure upgrading to Mikrotik CloudCore 1036-12G-4S

RouterOS General
1

Hi there,

I’m a newcomer who’s been learning and using networking equipment on the go for 2 years.
Networking can be quite fun on the go, but now I face a decision that I do not want to get wrong. To buy or not to buy an expensive 1036-12G-4S (possibly EM for 16GB Memory)

We run a Dedicated Fiber line from Vibe Communications (200/200) that is not being saturated for uplink (max ~14Mbps) and saturated downlink when updating games.

We currently have a CRS125-24G-1S-2HnD that I suspect is the root cause of lag for our gameserver clients.
Reason being is:

  • The CPU averages around 70-90% during peak hours and I had to turn off firewall rules/close nat ports in an attempt to reduce cpu.
  • All external clients experience lag at the same time
  • Local side MTR ping to google.com shows spikes maxing 148ms from router, avg is 0ms, 0.000018% loss
    I’m not sure of a definitive test I could do to work this out. The protocol is UDP, External Client->NAT->Local Gameserver

Requirements:

  • Bandwidth Throttling for Local Client Uploads/Downloads only when required
  • +10 Firewall rules
  • +40 NAT rules for port forwarding
  • 2 DHCP servers
  • 1 External Client IPSEC to local network
  • SFP Cage
  • At least 1million pps performance
  • 120 Max local connections
  • ~300 external clients for servers

I would appreciate it if I could get some help deciding, attached is the network diagram. Thank you very much!

2

CRS125 is a switch with enough CPU to do some basic routing/firewalling tasks, 200/200 is beyond its capabilities as a Router.

CCR1036 is the best routerboard in price/performance ratio, you cannot go wrong with it.

That being said, any CCR (RB3011 and RB1100AHx2 ruled out as there’s no SFP on them) will perform fine in your scenario.

Even a Hap AC with careful programming could cope with that load.

3

Try fasttrack and rethink the firewall. It may help you to reach such speed even with your actual device. It worth to try. Otherwise whatever faster will be enough for sure… Ccr absolutely.

4

You can also go with a CCR1009. I have one that handles multiple VPNs,numerous firewall rules, 1Gb/1Gb service, multiple streaming, concurrent uploads and downloads without breaking a sweat.

So far you haven’t provided enough information as to why you should go with the CCR1036. By all means, get what you think is best.

5

Hi,

Thanks for all your replies!

I’m confident that this router will suit our needs then, it’ll be great to be able to add very fine tuned rules to it without worry of lag.

It will take 2-3 weeks for our supplier to deliver, in the meantime we need to implement a pfsense router without a SFP to the existing slower mikrotik.

Does anyone know of a way to just use the mikrotik as a SFP/PPoE passthrough to a PFSense box that does routing and NAT?

Thanks

6

You can use it as a switch, make SFP and one ether port, say ether24 part of the switch (not a bridge), then connect the pfSense box to that ether port.

That would leave the CRS125 as a mere media adapter, from all perspectives ether24 will be L2 transparent to the SFP.