Which types of ports would you like to see for a high speed router

[nz_monkey]

@mfrabbibd

Normis, every RM Router Should have a DC power option!

every CCR should have a -48volt DC power option

[gangz]

If you says about ROUTER, this configuration will be interesting:
2 x Copper 1Gbit
10 x SFP+ 10Gbit
2 x Copper 10Gbit Ethernet
2 x QSFP 40Gbit

[cheeze]

@nz_monkey

The chipsets from Broadcom are being used in “routing switches” e.g. Brocade MLX/VDX, Nokia 7210 SAS-T/M and certain Arista switches.

They are great for fixed scenarios but are not good as a “General Purpose” router, and have some pretty hard limitations. e.g. Broadcom Trident II can do VXLAN and QinQ and vlan re-write, just not all together, and due to everything being “baked” into the silicone, that cannot be changed.

Mikrotik have a lot more experience now than when they started the CCR project, so I am confident they will select an architecture that is suitable for use as a general purpose router.

Yes, they are layer 3 “routing switches”. Basically routing functionality bolted on. The reason I was looking more at those is because that limitation that you’re pointing out (which does exist) is one that GENERALLY isn’t hit too often.I was more looking at the MPLS/VXLAN/QinQ/translational as features that can be done at line rate. Usually one would need one or the other, but not all at once. Now I am not pushing super hard to get those chipsets, I’m just more investigating and seeing if they are a fit. I personally would love to see line rate from Mikrotik. Or near line rate (which the Tile GX approach).

Something I was always hoping for was like a CRS226-24G-2S+RM chipset with the Tile GX for forwarding. Or CRS125-24G-1S-RM with Tile GX. Or even the smaller ones like the CRS210-8G-2S+IN.

[idlemind]

In additional to as many high-speed ports as you can cram into the box either a line-card slot or just a bank of regular 1GB Ethernet ports can be extremely useful to designers and provide a high level of flexibility. Something like 6 - 12 x 1GB ports wouldn’t hurt the back-plane of the box significantly I imagine. Something I hated with the earlier Cisco ISRs and even somewhat today is the difficulty to obtain the number of ports necessary to do anything other than trunk down to a L2 switch below it if you are doing anything more than a typical edge router with NAT. This is already a strength with most of your devices shipping with 4+ ports.

[StubArea51]

@nz_monkey

@cheeze

I respectfully disagree. Those chipsets from Broadcom are fully functional and capable routers. I was hoping Mikrotik could jump into the bandwagon to disrupt Cisco/Juniper/Nokia and bring down the overall costs of networking. Eventually I’d like to start an ISP business, but well…equipment isn’t exactly cheap. That being said, it’s not equipment that bothers me so much as having to grease the wheels by buying political power to get right of way and whatnot.

The chipsets from Broadcom are being used in “routing switches” e.g. Brocade MLX/VDX, Nokia 7210 SAS-T/M and certain Arista switches.

They are great for fixed scenarios but are not good as a “General Purpose” router, and have some pretty hard limitations. e.g. Broadcom Trident II can do VXLAN and QinQ and vlan re-write, just not all together, and due to everything being “baked” into the silicone, that cannot be changed.

Mikrotik have a lot more experience now than when they started the CCR project, so I am confident they will select an architecture that is suitable for use as a general purpose router.

Great points as always NZ…

However, I will add that ASIC limitations are no longer an issue for any of the newer whitebox switch gear running the Barefoot Tofino chip as the ASIC can be programmed on the fly with the P4 language. Barefoot is being put in switches that would have otherwise run a Trident 2+ chipset.

[nz_monkey]

@IPANetEngineer

However, I will add that ASIC limitations are no longer an issue for any of the newer whitebox switch gear running the Barefoot Tofino chip as the ASIC can be programmed on the fly with the P4 language. Barefoot is being put in switches that would have otherwise run a Trident 2+ chipset.

@IPANetEngineer I completely agree, the Barefoot Tofino is one of the most interesting developments in networking in the last 10 years.

It will be interesting to see what products make use of Tofino in the next 18 months.

[Hammy]

@IPANetEngineer

@nz_monkey

@cheeze

I respectfully disagree. Those chipsets from Broadcom are fully functional and capable routers. I was hoping Mikrotik could jump into the bandwagon to disrupt Cisco/Juniper/Nokia and bring down the overall costs of networking. Eventually I’d like to start an ISP business, but well…equipment isn’t exactly cheap. That being said, it’s not equipment that bothers me so much as having to grease the wheels by buying political power to get right of way and whatnot.

The chipsets from Broadcom are being used in “routing switches” e.g. Brocade MLX/VDX, Nokia 7210 SAS-T/M and certain Arista switches.

They are great for fixed scenarios but are not good as a “General Purpose” router, and have some pretty hard limitations. e.g. Broadcom Trident II can do VXLAN and QinQ and vlan re-write, just not all together, and due to everything being “baked” into the silicone, that cannot be changed.

Mikrotik have a lot more experience now than when they started the CCR project, so I am confident they will select an architecture that is suitable for use as a general purpose router.

Great points as always NZ…

However, I will add that ASIC limitations are no longer an issue for any of the newer whitebox switch gear running the Barefoot Tofino chip as the ASIC can be programmed on the fly with the P4 language. Barefoot is being put in switches that would have otherwise run a Trident 2+ chipset.

I assume that chip is a bit larger scale than Mikrotik is looking to go… given that it handles 65x the performance Mikrotik hinted towards in the initial post.

[tempName]

The question was on a router and around 100 Gbit throughput.

I’d think that would limit it basically to two QSFP-Ports (probably often used as “upstream”). I’d further propose 6x SFP+ - ports and additional 8x 10G copper (10GBASE-T) for compatibility with existing (even GBit) connections. I’d liked an extra (GBit) management lan port and serial connection, too.

It probably makes sense to have (at least optional, if need be external) redundant power supplies as well.

Even if reduced to 4x SFP+, 4x 10GBase-T, 8x 1000Base-T (maybe even partly or all with PoE+) plus mgmt-LAN & serial would it make a great cloud router switch …

[SteveWrightNZ]

And go compete with china?

I think you should stick with wireless stuff, and maybe build a quality FDM full-duplex system with sub-1ms ping over 10km. We’d like that.

[Revelation]

Coming from a Data Center background, I’d like to see:

Access / Distro #1
24x 1G / 10G Copper
4-6x SFP28 / QSFP28

Access / Distro #2
16x SFP / SFP+
4-6x SFP28 / QSFP28

Core
You could also run a “core” router with:
10x SFP28 / QSFP28
4x 1G / 10G Copper
or
4x SFP / SFP+

I’d still love to see you guys add VXLAN / EVPN features to your devices.

[Hammy]

Let’s not forget that QSFP and QSFP28 both support breakout or fanout cables.

[JimmyNyholm]

@Hammy

Let’s not forget that QSFP and QSFP28 both support breakout or fanout cables.

And Dont forget:

QSFP28 can do:
1-4 x 10
1-4 x 25
1-2 x 50
1 x 100

SFP28 can do:
1 x 10
1 x 25

QSFP+ can do:
1-4 x 10
1 x 40

SFP+ can do:
1 x 10
1 x 1

All speeds and breakout combinations should be supported on all the ports no shit as of now only 10 och sfp+ port

[nz_monkey]

@Revelation

I’d still love to see you guys add VXLAN / EVPN features to your devices.

This is getting pretty OT now, but:

+1000

Please email support@mikrotik.com and lodge your official feature request. Eventually they will get annoyed enough by the constant emails and add it

[StubArea51]

@Hammy

@IPANetEngineer

@nz_monkey

@cheeze

I respectfully disagree. Those chipsets from Broadcom are fully functional and capable routers. I was hoping Mikrotik could jump into the bandwagon to disrupt Cisco/Juniper/Nokia and bring down the overall costs of networking. Eventually I’d like to start an ISP business, but well…equipment isn’t exactly cheap. That being said, it’s not equipment that bothers me so much as having to grease the wheels by buying political power to get right of way and whatnot.

The chipsets from Broadcom are being used in “routing switches” e.g. Brocade MLX/VDX, Nokia 7210 SAS-T/M and certain Arista switches.

They are great for fixed scenarios but are not good as a “General Purpose” router, and have some pretty hard limitations. e.g. Broadcom Trident II can do VXLAN and QinQ and vlan re-write, just not all together, and due to everything being “baked” into the silicone, that cannot be changed.

Mikrotik have a lot more experience now than when they started the CCR project, so I am confident they will select an architecture that is suitable for use as a general purpose router.

Great points as always NZ…

However, I will add that ASIC limitations are no longer an issue for any of the newer whitebox switch gear running the Barefoot Tofino chip as the ASIC can be programmed on the fly with the P4 language. Barefoot is being put in switches that would have otherwise run a Trident 2+ chipset.

I assume that chip is a bit larger scale than Mikrotik is looking to go… given that it handles 65x the performance Mikrotik hinted towards in the initial post.

Mike, Barefoot is looking to scale down as well as up. It’s a question I specifically asked them when I visited their corp HQ in January. Look for Barefoot going into smaller boxes in next 12 months.

[sterling]

I would like 8x QSFP+ in pretty much the same form factor/config as the CCR 1072.

That way I could do uplinks to my older model Force10 switches and backbone 40Gbps pretty cheap across longer distances.

LR QSFP+ modules are in the low hundreds range now. With 40km QSFP+ modules coming down in price as well.

[anuser]

I myself also talked about QSFP28, but as Normis mentioned, Mikrotik prepares for a 100Gbit/s router, not a terrabit one. Although I also want to build an inexpensive 100 Gbit/s core.

[paulct]

I would like to see more of a focus on the layer2 distribution side so it ties in with these new proposed routers. Otherwise we would need to pick other brands for L2 which we have been doing especially for SFP+ port density and POE. Stacking on the switches as well as the routers. More IPv6 support in ROS. No need for any LCD’s. Removable dual power supplies.
Personally I do not need 10gb ethernet, but in the server/dc environment I can see the need.
Layer2 access:
24 SFP+ ports, dual PSU
24 SFP+ ports + 4 x QSFP, dual PSU
48 x 1Gbe + 2 x SFP+
24 x 10Gbe + 4 x QSFP
48 x 1Gbe POE at/af + 2 x SFP+

CCR’s:
12 x SFP+ and 4 x 10Gbe combo ports
12 x SFP+ and 4 x QSFP

[savage]

Please do a CLEAR separation between “enterprise” routers, and SOHO routers. I think it’s time…

Enterprise Routers - PLEASE we are willing to pay, MAKE IT RELIABLE, make it PERFORM.

Interfaces, can be modular. 4 x 1GB, 4 x SPF, 2 x SFP+, 1 x QSFP+, etc… No need to have fixed ports. Same with power supplies, same with fans.

Just my 2c, but BIGGER routers means NOTHING when the CURRENT routers can’t perform either. There’s numerous flaws on your “flagship” CCR routers, which has little to no interest from MT to be fixed (PSUs, BGP, etc). I for one, won’t even THINK about purchasing “bigger” routers from MT when the existing routers are so unreliable and under performing.

[brotherdust]

I know this is probably not going to go over well, but I’m going to say it anyway: it’s time for Mikrotik to have an Apple equivalent of “Back to the Mac”; except the Mac is RouterOS. I don’t want to see another piece of hardware. I want to see a commitment to releasing RouterOS 7. All these different devices they are releasing, yeah.. they make sense for a small portion of your customers. Why not focus some effort on something that all your customers can benefit from? There are numerous wish lists on the forums talking about what we’d all like to see in v7, so it’s not worth re-iterating here.

Hopefully someone out there will see the logic in what I’m saying.

[cheeze]

@brotherdust

I know this is probably not going to go over well, but I’m going to say it anyway: it’s time for Mikrotik to have an Apple equivalent of “Back to the Mac”; except the Mac is RouterOS. I don’t want to see another piece of hardware. I want to see a commitment to releasing RouterOS 7. All these different devices they are releasing, yeah.. they make sense for a small portion of your customers. Why not focus some effort on something that all your customers can benefit from? There are numerous wish lists on the forums talking about what we’d all like to see in v7, so it’s not worth re-iterating here.

Hopefully someone out there will see the logic in what I’m saying.

I’ve said this many times and I get yelled at and disparaged.

ROS7 > *

ROS7 needs to come out before 'tik is able to really make more inroads.