Hey Guys,
I'm working on redesigning some of my network. I am going to switch from the skypilot system I'm currently running to an ospf routed network using routeros. I would like to know how well the rb333's work. I am planning on running 2 5.8ghz p2p links with nstreme and a 2.4 ap to clients. Will a single rb333 handle that?? Would like to know some of your real world experience.

Thanks
Jason

Jason,

From my experience, I'd say yes, though my experience is somewhat limited. We are running a pair of RB333's in Nstreme with XR5's and they easily handle everything the radios can give them. I have never seen CPU load over 20% running 30+mbits of throughput. I cannot see any reason why you COULDN'T run a pair of 5 GHz radios and a 2.4 broadcast from the same RB333 but I WOULDN'T do it myself.

I think it comes down to putting all of your eggs in one basket and while I don't know your network topology, if anything besides the AP to customers is going to be using the 5 ghz link I would suggest keeping the backhaul on it's own radio. That way, if your AP to customers failed, other traffic would still be able to run and visa versa. I guess it really wouldn't matter unless you are multihomed from the site you are talking about.

One other thing I'd like to make you aware of is when you start stacking 3 radios on top of each other like they are on the RB333 you can run into heat issues if you are using high power radios in hot environments. I've seen XR radios get so hot you didn't want to touch them stacked in a configuration like that and therefore I recommend leaving the middle slot open unless you really really want all three radios in the same box and if that is the case, put a fan in there or something.

Long answer short, my experience says YES. We've run a single RB333 as a repeater with a pair of XR2's and pushed 30mbits through it as well and It should work if that is the route you really want to go but I personally wouldn't suggest it. I've never had to worry about radio failure so we might be throwing money away to split up our links onto seperate radios but I think in the long run it could pay off, $180 for a RB333 is cheap compared to mad customers when their link is down. Just my 2 cents.

Tony

Tony
Thanks for the reply. I was looking at a single box solution for a couple of reasons. Cost and ease of implementation. I'm basically looking at creating an ospf ring with the 5.8 So if I did have issues with that ap - the ring should self heal and start routing in the other direction (all in theory). I have a low customer base currently and would be looking at redoing the entire network ( 7 locations) Please let me know if I'm wrong about how quickly ospf will fail over.

Thanks
Jason

thumpnspeakers

A couple of things.... First you can't physically put 3 XR cards in a RB333 - they won't fit in the slots together.... You'll have to use a daughter board....

The RB333 can handle about 4 hi-power XR cards - as far as supplying sufficient current to the cards. The two issues with this are - that starts to reach the limit that the RB can supply power for - they (MT) recommend that there be some cooling supplied if you are going to do this - you may well get away with 3 cards ok..... Issues two is - you have to 'stuff' a lot of power up your cat5 - you'll need, I am going to spell it out here, - RB333 uses about 5 - 7 watts, each XR series about 4 watts so 5+4+4+4 =17 (19) watts so you'll need at least a 24vdc power supply with I would say 1 amp or better (like 1.2 or 1.5amps) to compensate for line loss in the cat5 to make this work....

I am with expunge on this as well - I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket.... If it were possible for you to use a larger enclosure you could physically mount 2 RB333s in a single enclosure (we have a few like this....) and run two cards each all to external antennas.... A little pricer upfront but may save you a lot in the long run...

The RB333 will handle a lot of traffic...OSPF - well in our latest test it 'failed over' in about 100ms. Now for this to happen around a whole ring...depends on the remainder of your setup, may take a second or two to get all the way around.... I think I remember some kind of setting on the OSPF routing - hmmm maybe it can be set for a lower 'timeout' value... I'll have to check.

Well there you have it - another opinion... :)

R/

Hey Guys,
What would your thoughts be on running a 133 or a 411 a single p2p backhaul into the tower location. Then a 333 for the actual ap to clients. Is there much of a difference as far as overall bandwidth between the 133/411 with a single radio compared to a 333 doing double duty as a backhaul/ap. Then I would have the ability to manipulate each link individually. I don't have the real world experience with these 3 but looking at specs there isn't a big jump from the 411 to the 333 as far as processor/memory.

Jason

The 411 board is designed as a client CPE board. You can't upgrade the license to perform as an AP. But, they do have a great deal of power for the price. In a p2p link setup, I would think you could get 20MBps through two of them.

Travis

I've been using some rb411s for backhauls and have been getting about 35mb tcp throughput. From rb411 to RB411 the speed in btest will should between 25-30 but running pc on each end real traffic between 30-35MB.

Thats a great deal for <$500 complete link with full management...