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Hodjat
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Is Mikrotik equipment suitable for my home office network need? Looking for suggestions.

Wed Dec 14, 2022 3:36 pm

Hi there,
I have renovated my house and wired all rooms and even outside with cat 6 ethernet cables. I am in the process of selecting the suitable equipment for my home/home office network.
I have symmetric fiber with 750 Mbs internet connection (can get up to a gigabit). I have a survailance system with a few ip security cameras connected to the NVR recording 24/7. In addition I have a lot of smart sensors, lights and switches I use for home automation using wifi, zigbee and z-wave technologies managed centrally with Home Assistant. I am going to set up a NAS to be used in home and home office networks. I would like to have a few VLAN for surveillance system, other smart home equipment, main home network, home office and guest networks with the ability to manage the connections across the networks. I work from home, therefore I would like to have a fast connection to company VPN. Now I get around 100Mbs via vpn which is not enough for my work. In addition I want to have my own fast VPN for my own business (working on it :-)) that lets me connect to the network (home office) and provide a few others to work with me remotely.
I can think of a few obvious equipment types:
- A wired router
- A switch (probably manageable may come with a poe for a access point)
- An access point with both 2.4 and 5 GHz signal, VLAN capable since wireless devices from different VLANs would be connected
I have a 18U rack with a patch panel for 24 connections. I have a 3 story house. The ISP router/AP is located on the 1st floor and I still get about 60 Mbs on the 3rd floor. I believe if I put the access point in the 2nd floor the overall signal strength would be more uniform across the floors.
I hope I could clearly express my situation and need to get a few suggestions on the equipment and network plan/design.

Thank you for any comment.
 
Hodjat
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Re: Is Mikrotik equipment suitable for my home office network need? Looking for suggestions.

Thu Dec 15, 2022 4:00 pm

By checking the Mikrotik products, I see some options:
- Router: how about RB4011iGS+RM or RB5009UG+S+IN? The latter does not come with a poe out for the access point.
Since the router come with 8 to 10 ports I might not need the switch at this point. Is it a good idea to have the VLANs on the router ports and add a few cheap unmanageable switches later like netgear GS108?
Access point: cAP ac wall mount. I am not sure if it provides me with the vlan capabilities I need. Should I use hAP ax2 router instead?
 
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Amm0
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Re: Is Mikrotik equipment suitable for my home office network need? Looking for suggestions.

Thu Dec 15, 2022 8:09 pm

By checking the Mikrotik products, I see some options:
- Router: how about RB4011iGS+RM or RB5009UG+S+IN? The latter does not come with a poe out for the access point.
I'd say use the RB5009 as the main router and switch. But all Mikrotik have the same RouterOS, so all support VLANs - some are faster at router and/or switching for sure. But both would work for your purposes. While using router as switch make sense, I'm a big fan of the Wi-Fi being seperate from the router. Why I suggest RB5009 has a smaller footprint, and no internal Wi-Fi which I think is an advantage IMO since separating Wi-Fi out allows for easier upgrades later as those standard evolve - IP routing isn't changing.

I'd review "Using RouterOS to VLAN your network" here: viewtopic.php?t=143620 – offers a "catalog of topologies" you use on either the RB5009 or another Mikrotik.

If you got crazy you could get two routers and use VRRP to make them redundant. Then an RouterOS upgrade, and there are frequent ones, would not cause any outage.

Since the router come with 8 to 10 ports I might not need the switch at this point. Is it a good idea to have the VLANs on the router ports and add a few cheap unmanageable switches later like netgear GS108?
Access point: cAP ac wall mount. I am not sure if it provides me with the vlan capabilities I need. Should I use hAP ax2 router instead?
The cAP ac is a "generation behind", still would work for your use cases, but just saying if your building something new... If you went Mikrotik for APs, the hAP ax2 likely make a great AP, and offer additional ethernet ports. There is no problem with VLANs running o the hAP ax2. By separating the Wi-Fi from switching/router, you can also use non-Mikrotik AP as there are more options that support AX than Mikroitk at present offer, while still getting RouterOS flexibility to define the networks/firewall/etc. I just wouldn't mix vendors on the same Wi-Fi SSID.

[RB5009] does not come with a poe out for the access point.
While no PoE out, this isn't too bad I think. Some stuff is 24V, other use 48V 802.11at, still other need high-power 48V passive – so in some ways using a PoE injector to the RB5009 continues the flexibility add the needed type of power.


Edit: broke OP's quote in parts for clarity
 
holvoetn
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Re: Is Mikrotik equipment suitable for my home office network need? Looking for suggestions.

Thu Dec 15, 2022 9:01 pm

Confused re: POE out ...
From product page of RB5009UPr+S+IN

PoE-out
Details
PoE-out ports Ether1-Ether8
PoE out 802.3af/at
Max out per port output (input 18-30 V) 640 mA
Max out per port output (input 30-57 V) 420 mA
Max total out (A) 2.59 A
Total output current 2.28
Total output power 130
 
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Amm0
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Re: Is Mikrotik equipment suitable for my home office network need? Looking for suggestions.

Thu Dec 15, 2022 11:03 pm

Confused re: POE out ...
From product page of RB5009UPr+S+IN
I didn't even know they make one with PoE-version of the RB5009 – you know more than me. That seems even better for your use case. I was referring to their "older" non-PoE ones, those are great, but yeah you need to inject PoE to use as switch on those...
 
glavoie84
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Re: Is Mikrotik equipment suitable for my home office network need? Looking for suggestions.

Fri Dec 16, 2022 12:14 am

I just installed a RB5009UPr with an Omada WiFi APs kit (1 x OC200 controller + 3 x EAP615 wall AP) powered by the RB5009 over PoE, to support a symetrical Gigabit connection. Those APs also double as switches that allow me to hardwire the nearest computers. Also a home office setup.

Been running this for a week now and I'm very satisfied by the result. On WiFi when close so the APs I get between 500-700 Mbps, over 300Mbps all over the house.

Those APs support creating SSIDs on different VLANs and even assigning different VLANs on the internal switch ports.

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