SwOS features - anybody care to guess?

NAB · Tue Feb 23, 2010 5:41 pm

I know this is the RouterOS general forum, but there isn't a SwOS page yet...

So, MT announce the "RB250G smart gigabit switch with new SwOS (SwitchOS)"

Now I'm assuming:

SwOS = ROS - packages

So what would be useful in a Switch and what do you think MT have got rid of? Anybody care for a guess before we find out for real next week?

Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:56 pm

you can see link status and negotiated speed.

Hammy · Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:05 pm

you can see link status and negotiated speed.

Which is an incredibly abbreviated version of MT's regular interface reporting.

Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:07 pm

if you need more then use a bridge instead of a switch

Hammy · Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:14 pm

if you need more then use a bridge instead of a switch

Losing the speed benefits of the switch, and features most other managed switches provide.

The MT switches are substandard switches instead of advanced routers like the rest of their products.

NAB · Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:31 pm

OK. So I think we can agree that a SwOS box needs much more control over the switch chip than ROS has (assuming there's a switch chip on the board), *or* it needs to bridge as required (and, if so, must be performant enough to do so). Given that the use of a switch chip in current RB products is a way of off-loading tasks which require no intelligence and that a SwOS box would need that intelligence, my money's on there being no switch chip.

netrat · Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:39 pm

I haven't had much luck with the on-board switch chip. I've had two different RB450G stop "switching" after a power failure, but the configuration was correct. I changed back to bridging and haven't had any problems since.

Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:17 pm

I am guessing it will be a basic switch with a few extra bells and whistles compared to the current implementation on the RB4/7xx series.

The switching market is vicious, and very difficult to gain market share in. Over the years I have worked closely with Allied Telesis, Cisco, Foundry, Extreme, Juniper, HP ProCurve, Linksys and Nortel and all have had their ups and downs. Most try to differentiate themselves on features such as ESRP, MPLS, or into the different markets. e.g. Allied Telesis are big in schools and 3rd tier telco's.

This product is potentially more interesting than even the RB1100 and I will be watching this one closely.

NAB · Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:34 pm

As far as I am concerned, the question is what features will SwOS have that ROS doesn't have? The way I see it, I can't think of a single one (but maybe I need to think harder).

So if we assume that SwOS is a cut-back version of ROS and further assume that the S250G comes in the same package as a RB750G - Given that a fully featured RB750G retails for about GBP50, a SwOS equivalent would need to be priced at around GBP30 or less I would have thought. That's not a lot of money and not a lot of room for margin.

Assuming that the S250G follows the same naming convention as the RBs, it would have 5 ports. Is there a market for 5 port managed switches?

On the other hand, it could use a new numbering convention and actually be a 25 port device. One could postulate that if it was, port 25 would be SFP. That'd be nice.

dog · Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:39 pm

Also it will be difficult for MikroTik to match e.g. HP in

30 years guarantee
Next business-day replacement

So they will have to go for

Price
Features

Given that a basic 24 port Gigabit HP switch costs 480€ (2510-24G) a MikroTik with MSTP,LACP,etc. and the bridge filter we have now, costing less would be an improvement

I think you will be right about MPLS, MikroTik is pushing it.

And if MikroTik does not do the "we sell you a SFP module worth 40€ for 400€ just beacuse we check the vendor-id of the module that is nevertheless produced by Finisar"-game I'm nearly sold.

Hammy · Wed Feb 24, 2010 1:10 am

A 750G or even 450G is a great number of ports and pricing... if the switching worked properly.

Wed Feb 24, 2010 4:58 am

And if MikroTik does not do the "we sell you a SFP module worth 40€ for 400€ just beacuse we check the vendor-id of the module that is nevertheless produced by Finisar"-game I'm nearly sold.

Lol, yep my thought exactly. A lot of that stuff if OEM'd out of Chinese OEM's like Fiberay anyway.

Oh, and I thought I would mention:

A 24 port 10/100 edge switch should have at least 2 gigabit uplinks
A 48 port 10/100 edge switch should have at least 4 gigabit uplinks
A 24 port gigabit edge switch should have at least 2 10 gigabit uplinks

HP at least get that right for the most part.

Anyway, enough speculation lets see what Mikrotik announce!

roc-noc.com · Wed Feb 24, 2010 6:20 am

As far as I am concerned, the question is what features will SwOS have that ROS doesn't have? The way I see it, I can't think of a single one (but maybe I need to think harder).

So if we assume that SwOS is a cut-back version of ROS and further assume that the S250G comes in the same package as a RB750G - Given that a fully featured RB750G retails for about GBP50, a SwOS equivalent would need to be priced at around GBP30 or less I would have thought. That's not a lot of money and not a lot of room for margin.

Assuming that the S250G follows the same naming convention as the RBs, it would have 5 ports. Is there a market for 5 port managed switches?

On the other hand, it could use a new numbering convention and actually be a 25 port device. One could postulate that if it was, port 25 would be SFP. That'd be nice.

The old RB naming convention is broken for switches. I want to see the number of ports at the end of the model number. Maybe they are teasing us and it will be S250G-12 or S250G-24. I really hope it is not just another 5 port device. If it is, it needs to sell for US $29 or less.

Tom

Wed Feb 24, 2010 8:22 am

For those of you who are not coming, it's a good thing we will have a live feed: http://www.tiktube.com/?live=live

(at least we will try, let's hope that hotel has a good internet connection)

Wed Feb 24, 2010 8:24 am

S250G

correction: RB250G

NAB · Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:55 am

correction: RB250G

Yes. Sorry. My bad.

Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:10 am

After the MUM announcement you will know everything about the RB250G. At that point, we will start a competition. Send in your suggestions and feature requests to support, and the best and most reasonable suggestion will receive a prize at the MUM. the winner must be present to receive the prize. The prize will be a RouterBOARD device.

Send mail to support@mikrotik.com with subject "SwOS suggestion".

Best suggestion will receive prize at end of MUM.

PLEASE SEND SUGGESTIONS ONLY AFTER THE MUM !

freethought · Mon Mar 01, 2010 7:24 pm

So, what was announced today then for those of us that weren't there?

Chupaka · Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:16 pm

it's not RouterOS w/o packages. it's completely different OS with web-only interface =)

dog · Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:23 pm

with web-only interface =)

That would be bad unless MikroTik found a way to do this:

vlan 15
untag 1-24
tag 25,26

in the same time with a web interface (which I have yet to see).

freethought · Mon Mar 01, 2010 11:34 pm

Yeah, never been impressed with web managed switches for that exact reason. Dell came pretty close with their web based interface for editing VLAN tags, but it was still tedious and at least you could always use the CLI if you wanted to!

NAB · Tue Mar 02, 2010 12:01 am

Yeah, never been impressed with web managed switches for that exact reason.

The general consensus of opinion from the people I spoke to was that without a console, they couldn't consider it anything more than a toy - we all came up with scenarios where the only viable method of accessing such devices would be via console (ssh or telnet) access.

The interesting part of the conversation though was that we all wondered what MT's target market is - not just for this switch, but for all the RB/ROS products. I'll marshal my thoughts and start a new topic just to cover this point.

roc-noc.com · Tue Mar 02, 2010 8:14 pm

After the MUM announcement you will know everything about the RB250G. ---<cut>---

I was up at 3am watching the feed and I still don't know the price nor the ship date.

Shall we start a contest on that?

I am guessing $39 US and shipping April 1.

Anybody else?

Tom

Chupaka · Tue Mar 02, 2010 8:41 pm

$25 and... 1 april =)

CastorTroy · Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:26 pm

I can guaranty that my company will have zero interest in purchasing these if they do not come with a command line interface. If 24/48 port and 24/48 port PoE versions were offered, with a command line, we would jump all over these.

dssmiktik · Tue Mar 02, 2010 9:45 pm

I looked through the videos on TikTube and the YouTube channel and didn't see the SwOS or hardware mentioned? Which video is it under?

dog · Tue Mar 02, 2010 10:26 pm

I looked at the slides and must say I have no idea of what to make of this product.
Either this is a veeeeery early stage in the expansion of the product palette or MT is looking for a hobby.

So we have a 5 port soft-managed gigabit switch.
The only place where I can think of using that is under my desk at home.

Also the other switches in this category start at 65€ - at this price MT is already offering the RB750G which has the huge advantage of having an IP firewall for filtering.

Other things I'm missing from the slides:
* IPv6 configuration?
* Assign the management interface to a VLAN?
* Where is the netmask for the IP address?

* LACP/Trunking?
* MSTP?
* Named Ports?
* Port load graphs?

As it stands I don't see where the RB250GS should fit in.

(It's not "outgress" nor "outgres" but "Egress" btw)

Chupaka · Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:42 am

why haven't you thought about QoS? =)

Wed Mar 03, 2010 9:39 pm

the price is targeted to be in range of "it's so cheap i don't care what it's missing"

yri · Thu Mar 04, 2010 8:48 am

the price is targeted to be in range of "it's so cheap i don't care what it's missing"

So can we see the tech specks on new products ? just talking around

roc-noc.com · Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:03 am

Now called RB250GS. I guessed the price right but was off by a month on the ship date.

http://www.roc-noc.com/pdf/RB250gs/rb250gs.pdf

Tom

csickles · Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:30 am

A bit confused on the architecture....
http://www.taifatech.com/Files/TF470_Pr ... ief_02.pdf
is the "engine"...

Used as a controller ? to run the Atheros device?

Are the onboard switch ports turned off ?

Use used as a CPU ?

Interesting....

csickles · Tue Mar 09, 2010 7:33 am

Second look maybee no onboard switch.. just two gig ports..

Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:44 am

That datasheet is not really correct. Also, we use a special, stripped down version of that chip.

Correction to the PDF, the first rows of the table should read:

CPU: Taifatech TF470
Memory: embedded 96K SRAM
Ethernet: Five 10/100/1000 ethernet ports, Atheros switch AR8316

Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:57 am

presentation video is online http://www.tiktube.com/?video=337

csickles · Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:47 pm

Yeh the last post want clear..

I meant the "CPU" had no ethenet switch...

I kind of think it could have been a "special build" from the talks I had with John a while back..

Cant wait to get my hand on one..

dssmiktik · Tue Mar 09, 2010 10:33 pm

Normis,

Thank you for posting the "MUM PL 2010: New Products" video on tiktube.com, I'm watching it now, looks interesting.

Some questions:
1) Is SwOS going to support scripting? Scripting makes RouterOS very powerful in my opinion.
2) Is SwOS going to support SSH/Telnet/CLI? This makes it very useful for issuing commands from a remote machine.
3) What export format is the SwOS going to support (native command syntax, XML-style, etc...) ?
4) Are packages available for SwOS or firmware-only ?
5) Is the RB800/RB600 + RB816 going to support SwOS software?

Keep expanding, and I look forward to this working stable, and more ports becoming available.

Wed Mar 10, 2010 8:27 am

The RB250GS is a switch. You shouldn't expect much more than that. SwOS is just a normal switch configuration page, nothing fancy. So far no packages, no command line, only works on switches by mikrotik.

dssmiktik · Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:34 am

The RB250GS is a switch. You shouldn't expect much more than that. SwOS is just a normal switch configuration page, nothing fancy. So far no packages, no command line, only works on switches by mikrotik.

Thanks for the update.

Just two more questions:
In RouterOS's web config on v3 and v4, I could manipulate some config by sending http://<page>?var=value . Are we going to be able to do this with say... /tool fetch or wget using the new webfig in SwOS? If it uses HTTP Auth, then we could issue commands remotely using this method. Anyway, just an idea for fun.

Is the RB800/RB600 + RB816 going to support SwOS software?

I'm going to have to wait and get my hands on one; I'm getting too excited I guess. (also can't wait to test out RouterOS v5).

Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:41 am

no, RouterBOARD 818 is an extension card which has individual interfaces. RB250GS is a true switch.

Also, most of the features for the SwOS are derived from the RB250GS CPU capabilities. RB816 doesn't have the same chips, so it depends on RouterOS to do VLANs and the rest of this stuff.

some config by sending http://<page>?var=value

not sure yet

omidkosari · Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:56 am

1-What about performance ? any comparison or chart ? how many pps ? is it designed for production or SOHO ?
2-can it do for example redirect port 80 (http) of x.x.x.x/x and y.y.y.y/y to port 3 (hardware port) of switch ?

Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:01 am

it's a switch. performance is wire speed.

omidkosari · Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:24 am

2-can it do for example redirect port 80 (http) of x.x.x.x/x and y.y.y.y/y to port 3 (hardware port) of switch ?

Wed Mar 10, 2010 11:48 am

Slide #33 http://mum.mikrotik.com/presentations/PL10/intro.pdf

Hammy · Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:29 pm

So is this new switch series supposed to add more features to the switch chip that we're currently trying to use in the RB450 and 750? It seems as though virtually all management is gone once you use the switch chip on these boards, but the 250 seems to leave that management intact.

hedele · Wed Mar 10, 2010 10:49 pm

Actually, I would totally love to see a 12 or 24 port version of a Mikrotik Switch (well, if it includes RSTP/PVST+).
I'm not sure where I would use the RB250GS, but maybe it can grab a foothold as small desktop switch or as a supplement to fully featured routerboards with less LAN Ports.

Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:50 am

argh, no!

this is completely different hardware than the RB450 and RB750. Those are routers. This is a switch. They have NOTHING in common

Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:07 am

Mikrotik Routerboard

1) run with RouterOS
2) use CPU and RAM to calculate things - faster and more powerful CPU and memory will result in better RouterBoard throughput/performance
3) can be Layer2 or Layer3 device
4) have switch feature, that will allow to force some boards act like MIkrotik Switch

MIkrotik Switch
1) run with SWoS
2) use ONLY Switch-chip hardware features - wire speed throughput with any available configuration
3) only a Layer-2 device

Hammy · Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:13 am

I know they're different hardware, but just because they're different doesn't mean they're what they should be.

onnoossendrijver · Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:46 pm

Will the RB250GS (or any successor) support LACP/802.3ad ?

a-l-i-e-n · Tue May 25, 2010 4:17 pm

will it suport igmp snooping?

staslabs · Wed Jun 23, 2010 11:12 am

Where full PDF doc?

ajfelek · Thu Jun 24, 2010 3:25 pm

Why not set up to RB250GS mask and gateway, it is the intention or mistake?

adrianatkins · Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:03 am

Is there a General Madness sweeping the WiFi manufacturing world ?

Some notion that there is a technological breakthrough that will Sweep the Stage ?

I hope that MikroTik do not start producing 'Sure They Will Like It' early release garbage like their (perceived) competitors.

e.g :-
Robert at UBNT emailed me to ask why i was being horrid on their forum.
I told the truth about the AirMax Rocket product. It didn't work.
DOA products were shipped, sold, and delivered.
The Only Hope was a Firmware Fix, which took months.
Cutting it very close legally IMHO.

I got banned from the forum for being a drunken twat though, which i am, so fair enough.

Mega Care is Required on the RB800.
Honesty will work best, but nobody ever listens to me in this kind of situation.

Remember what You are, and Who you sell to, and Why they Buy from You.

Screw any of those up, and MikroTik is History, which would be Bad. Bad for All.

MT sell, and make money, from WiFi kit and Firmware and Training, as i recall.

Please keep doing it.

Innovation is good, but uncertain. Stability and reliability is also good - sometimes better.

adrianatkins · Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:11 am

I forgot to mention:

UBNT rely on MikroTik AP sales to sell any CPE.

fewi · Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:24 am

Why not set up to RB250GS mask and gateway, it is the intention or mistake?

http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42956

Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:50 am

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