MikroTik Cloud Router Switch the master Cost-Effective for small and medium ISP environments
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use MikroTik Cloud Router Switch as access switches and aggregation. We think that the throughput is enough for our operation as an ISP. Their features and flexibility allow us to deploy Edge and enterprise environments, especially where the cost-efficiency and feature density are very important. MikroTik Cloud Router Switch helps us to address several business problems:
1 - Cost.Effective Layer 3 Hardware offloading allows us to upgrade the utilization of a switch as an L3 Switch to use routing in scenarios where RSTP or MSTP are not ideal.
2 - Multibrand support, you could connect with other brand devices and keep standard protocols running perfectly.
3 - Flexible port configuration and vlan management, in this section we can find some interesting features like vlan segmentation, port isolation, LACP, trunk, access and hybrid configuration are available.
4 - Dual OS (Router OS and SwOS) Depending of the use case you can choose between this two operative systems. SwOS is very light with all features for a pure switching environment. RouterOS is a more complete system for special configurations like L3 HW.
Pros
- L3 Hardware Offloading
- Vlan segmentation
- Traffic troughput
- Port density
- Cost effective
- Port Isolation
- Trunk, access and hybrid configurations
Cons
- L3 features like firewall IPsec NAT
- LACP with more than 4 interfaces
- Centralized Management platflorm
- Limited Hardware offloading insight
- Outdated web interface
- CLI usability
Likelihood to Recommend
MikroTik Cloud Router Switch work very well as layer2/3 switches in enterprise environments, aggregation or distribution layers. Example: in our case (ISP) we use CRS326 and CRS317 at multi-dwelling units to finish the customer lines, manage vlans of service and apply basic qos. They offer a good variety of ports 1/10G, which is perfect for connecting other ISPs or connecting corporate end users.
MikroTik Cloud Router Switch would work fine in low-traffic Routing and Switching, you could configure L3 Hardware offloading and serve some significant traffic, but you may missing some features like, mangle, nat, firewall or other things that may be solved with other device in an upper layer of infrastructure.
Based on our experience MikroTik Cloud Router Switch is not good for high performance traffic, they are not optimized for heavy L3 routing task. Example: if you use a CRS as core or router in a small DC or IX the result is traduced on high cpu usage and load performance. If you are looking for special works, MikroTik Cloud Router Switch in this aspect is out.
