Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On 2010-07-03 12:45, Alan Bryant wrote: On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Mikemike-na...@tiedyenetworks.com wrote: Mikrotik is great at lower end stuff where you have ethernet interfaces. Real POS OC-3 however, ain't in it's repertory and would not be what I would choose to route at those interfaces/speeds. However, if you must 'connect mikrotik to oc-3', you might as well find yourself a cisco router of some kind with a PA-POS-OC3 card and use it as a simple modem. Of course, for the price, you might as well just let the cisco do what you're planning on doing with the Mikrotik and get orders of magnitude of functionality and stability out of it in the process. Thanks for the responses guys. Unfortunately, we just don't have it in the budget for Cisco or Juniper hardware at this time. I was hoping there would be something available for Mikrotik, but I pretty much already knew the answer. oc-3 pos or atm is riding the tail end of the technology curve, there's not a lot of demand for new products using old technology and no downward pressure on price other than that no-one cares (large capex opportunity) any more and that they are readily available on the secondary market. While I know a lot of you guys would recommend Cisco or Juniper over anything else, and I also know that you guys probably think if you're needing an OC-3, it's time to invest in the big boys. actually buying the thing is only one dimension of the cost of ownership. in this case the price is also a signal that perhaps the other options make more sense, metro-e eosdh etc. of course if you need channelized atm for some reason you may have other feature requirements that are the decision point. However, I'm not the one who makes the final say on purchases. So, with all that being said, is there anyone who has any thoughts on ImageStream's products? They have a POS OC-3 card, and the price appears to be considerably lower for the router anyway, not necessarily the card, though. I'm just trying to see what options there are and make the decision off of that. If Cisco or Juniper is the only way, then so be it. I just want to be sure.
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
In terms of FOSS routing platforms, I think Vyatta has a better user interface than Mikrotik. IMHO if the CLI is awkward then there a higher risk of misconfiguration. I haven't used either enough to comment about stability. Jonathon. This email and attachments: are confidential; may be protected by privilege and copyright; if received in error may not be used, copied, or kept; are not guaranteed to be virus-free; may not express the views of Kordia(R); do not designate an information system; and do not give rise to any liability for Kordia(R).
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On 2010.07.05 17:26, Jonathon Exley wrote: In terms of FOSS routing platforms, I think Vyatta has a better user interface than Mikrotik. IMHO if the CLI is awkward then there a higher risk of misconfiguration. I haven't used either enough to comment about stability. ...not that I'd like to revert this to Mikrotic vs _vendor_, but *all* Mikrotic-specific hardware that we have deployed has always accepted a custom install of FreeBSD Quagga, that boots directly from the same type of media that the Mikrotic OS originally came on. fwiw, the Quagga interface is very friendly to those who know Cisco. Steve
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On Sat, 2010-07-03 at 19:29 -0700, Mike wrote: Yeah, that's what the brochure says anyways, I have been in the ISP business since early 1993. I have used a LOT of Cisco gear in the past 17 years. I am fully aware of it's functionality and it limits. but I don't know of many highly scaled networks using 'mikrotic' It's MikroTik, by the way. Because you don't know about them makes it true that they don't exist? I help to manage one network that covers the entire state of Wisconsin that uses MikroTik. Is that highly scaled in your estimation? and some of the reasons come down to management, software stability and a readily available pool of knowledgeable admins ready to build the next google with it. The world IS changing. Linux is moving into places that we never suspected it would go. I am not suggesting that Cisco will go away because of it. I am simply suggesting that your contention that the only real option is Cisco or Juniper is very short-sighted. Also, your statement that there is more functionality in a Cisco is just dead wrong. There is, perhaps, more functionality is SOME Ciscos, but not in a single unit. However, that sleep comes with the price of having to be a linux guru in order to do most network config operations, And this is different from Cisco how? While it's true that there is a lot of support out there for Cisco, it is, in my experience, even MORE true that there is good support for Linux network configurations. and in the 8 years I have been eating my own dog food and running in my network now, I've not encountered many who I could successfully pass off network admin duties too for these boxes (quagga, iproute2, ebtables, iptables for instance) and centralized management and configuration control is non-existent. Are you suggesting that you would do that if you used Cisco? This seems like a pretty isolated bit of anecdotal evidence when you talk about highly scaled networks in the first sentence. These commercial systems you scoff at No scoffing here. I merely suggested that Cisco/Juniper were not the ONLY choices. Not sure where you get the scoffing out of that. also support advanced and important features such as online insertion/removal - which lets you take a card like a gigE switch module, or a fiber/sonet interface, or a ds3, and just plug it in and immediately without a reboot or driver searching/updating/missing dance, start working. Another important difference is that these commercial units are NOT hosts and don't have silly host/desktop type stuff going on within them, like periodic flash writes, file systems filling with junk that causes system hangs, or hundeds of other possible reasons and causes that create 'system down' on host type machines that DON'T affect the commercial boxes, and contribute (in theory anyways) to the continued prospect of very long uptimes and reliable operation. This is in some respects true. Many of those things you point out certainly make the Cisco worth a look. I mean, if the network is moving data that cannot handle a few microseconds of downtime for VRRP or whatever failover solution you have in place to correct a problem, then I'm with you. Obviously, you cannot easily do this with the OC3, but it is not impossible to create very fast failover. If you recall, THAT was the interface we were discussing. With those interfaces, plugging in the module is only part of the process. The circuit will still take time to come up, whether you reboot the box or not. basic hardware features like dual and triple redundant power supplies, good fans and overall rugged design that further contribute to long lives (again in theory), that PC/x86 and other COTS SBC type hardware does not have. These features are available at a price. I have one X86 system that is running with dual power supplies right now. I can't imagine a scenario where I would need 3. Perhaps that's just my limited experience... So in summary, for small jobs, yeah you're right, but once your jobs aren't small anymore
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On Sat, 3 Jul 2010, Alan Bryant wrote: Does anyone know of a solution to connect a POS OC-3 to a router running Mikrotik's RouterOS? I have searched google extensively with varying phrases and nothing helpful comes out of it. I don't know much about Mikrotik, but there are OC-3 interfaces you can put in a regular pc: http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/0808/telesoft-technologies-stm-1-oc-3-pci-express-card.htm http://oem.imagestream.com/PCI_Card_Overview.html (the 1104 does POS/OC3 if I read it correctly). There seems to be others, last I checked though these cards were in the USD4000-5000 range or so, so it was cheaper to buy a used 7200/NPE-300 and PA-POS/PA-GE. If someone knows and has good experience of a POS card (pci or pci-e) that works well in Linux (2.6.32 preferrably) I'm very interested.
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
If your routing platform doesn't have POS OC-3, you can use a converter to map Ethernet services to it and keep using the platform you've been using. You lose a little on efficiency and failure detection, but turning BFD on might help: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Routing/BFD I've worked with converters from a local industry and I don't think they ship worldwide; in the US I would take at look at RAD, Transition Networks, Allied Telesis and probably some others. This is an issue not specific to Mikrotik; my experience with such a solution was with Cisco switch-routers that could do up to MPLS but had only Ethernet interfaces. Rubens On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Alan Bryant a...@gtekcommunications.com wrote: I haven't seen much traffic on this list about Mikrotik or RouterOS, but I thought it was worth a shot as a last ditch effort to get this going. Does anyone know of a solution to connect a POS OC-3 to a router running Mikrotik's RouterOS? I have searched google extensively with varying phrases and nothing helpful comes out of it. -- Alan Bryant | Systems Administrator Gtek Computers Wireless, LLC. a...@gtekcommunications.com | www.gtek.biz O 361-777-1400 | F 361-777-1405
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
You can always use a Gig-E - OC3c/STM1 media converter. I've used one from RAD just to provide OC3c access speeds for some over Cisco 75xx routers which don't support POS interfaces. Works great. Tim McKee On Sat, 2010-07-03 at 16:07 -0500, Butch Evans wrote: On Sat, 2010-07-03 at 12:22 -0700, Mike wrote: Mikrotik is great at lower end stuff where you have ethernet interfaces. Real POS OC-3 however, ain't in it's repertory and would not be what I would choose to route at those interfaces/speeds. While I agree that Mikrotik and OC-3 don't go together, I don't know why you would suppose that it can't route at that speed. It's a Linux kernel and given the right hardware, can easily handle that much speed. However, if you must 'connect mikrotik to oc-3', you might as well find yourself a cisco router of some kind with a PA-POS-OC3 card and use it as a simple modem. Or ImageStream for about 1/2 (or better) of the price. Of course, for the price, you might as well just let the cisco do what you're planning on doing with the Mikrotik and get orders of magnitude of functionality and stability out of it in the process. More functionality from a Cisco? You MUST be joking. MT (and ImageStream for that matter) can do WAY more than Cisco for a fraction of the price. Both will offer a much better firewall option, infinitely better QOS capability and is easily as good with dynamic routing (BGP, OSPF, etc.). What's more, you can have a spare on the shelf and STILL not spend as much money as you would for a Cisco device. -- * Butch Evans * Professional Network Consultation* * http://www.butchevans.com/* Network Engineering * * http://store.wispgear.net/* Wired or Wireless Networks * * http://blog.butchevans.com/ * ImageStream, Mikrotik and MORE! *
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
OK, I'll bite and add my 2 Russian kopecks to the Cisco vs. Linux router thread. To make it clear where I'm coming from, I see the networking world from the viewpoint of non-Ethernet WAN interfaces. A world consisting of nothing but Ethernet is too bland and boring for me to live in, and I choose not to live in such an Ethernet-only world. I do indeed like the good old ifconfig route better than Cisco IOS stuff: it's simpler, makes more sense to me, and fits my simple needs. However, this model works well for Ethernet because it's very simple: with Ethernet one generally has a 1:1 correspondence between the physical hardware unit and the logical network interface unit visible to ifconfig and the rest of the BSD/Linux network stack. But that is most definitely not the case for non-Ethernet WAN interfaces, and that is where I see a big shortcoming in what's currently available in the Linux router world. With non-Ethernet WAN interfaces one really needs an extra layer of highly configurable software functionality sandwiched in between the hardware interface unit and the ifconfig layer. The physical hardware interface is a synchronous serial bit stream processor that sends and receives either HDLC frames or ATM cells, and that is where the hardware-dictated part ends. Let's take the case of HDLC as it's more pleasant than ATM: in the case of HDLC the software layer between the HDLC controller and the ifconfig layer needs to do the following: * Let the user choose the encapsulation, and there are many choices: Cisco HDLC, straight PPP (RFC 1662), Frame Relay, PPP over FR (RFC 1973), ATM FUNI, etc. * If it's a Frame Relay encapsulation, let the user configure DLCIs. Oh, and there can be more than one, hence there may be multiple ifconfig-able entities on the same FR interface. * RFC 1490 (FR) and RFC 1483 (ATM) both allow bridged/MAC-encapsulated and true routed circuits; our software layer should support both, as as well as the possibility of mixing the two on different FR interfaces or different DLCIs on the same interface. These two modes need to look different to the ifconfig layer: if it's a bridged encapsulation, ifconfig needs to see a virtual Ethernet interface (virteth0 or macwan0); if it's a true routed encapsulation, ifconfig needs to see a MAC-less and ARP-less point-to-point interface like ipwan0. * Now let's support both HDLC and serial ATM (bit-by-bit cell delineation) if the underlying hardware is capable of both (like Freescale MPC862 and MPC866). Let's provide a user to switch between the two with a simple software command, and let's provide as much commonality as possible between the two configurations: let's support all RFC 1483 encapsulations on HDLC via FUNI, but make the configuration commands look just like ATM. Let's also support FRF.5 by allowing one to take an ATM PVC and treat its payload as a virtual HDLC interface, with possibly many FR DLCIs inside. I would love to be corrected on this, but I am not aware of anyone having implemented all of the above for Linux (or for any BSD variant) in a clean and generalized manner. Instead what we see is that each vendor of a PCI card for some non-Ethernet WAN interface has their own ad hoc solution which typically comes nowhere close to what I've outlined above in terms of generality and flexibility. Now here is something I'd like to build which will attempt to solve this mess. I'd like to build a modular WAN router based on the MPC866 chip from Freescale, former Motorola. MPC866 is a PowerPC with one very neat twist: it has 4 serial communication controller (SCC) cores on chip. Each SCC has a traditional 7-wire serial interface coming out of it (Rx data, Rx clock, Tx data, Tx clock, RTS, CTS and CD) and supports both HDLC and serial ATM. (The serial ATM mode supports both bit-by-bit cell delineation for a raw bit stream and octet-by-octet cell delineation for use with a framer that provides octet boundaries.) My modular router would be rather unique in that the interface to the pluggable WAN modules would not be PCI or anything of that sort, instead it would be the 7-wire serial interface coming from an MPC866 SCC, and there would be 4 possible daughtercard slots corresponding to the 4 SCCs. When the interface for pluggable WAN modules is something like PCI, the HDLC or ATM (including SAR) core has to be reimplemented anew by everyone who wants to build a new WAN module for a different flavor of Layer 1 physical interface, and I find it wasteful. The proliferation of such reinvented-wheel HDLC/ATM reimplementations is precisely the reason why there is no universally-accepted standardized framework for non-Ethernet WAN interfaces in Linux or *BSD. But if the cores implementing HDLC and ATM SAR reside inside the CPU chip like they do with MPC86x processors, we can have ONE well-written generic driver for these cores, and it will work exactly the same way and provide exactly the
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On Sun, Jul 04, 2010, Michael Sokolov wrote: OK, I'll bite and add my 2 Russian kopecks to the Cisco vs. Linux router thread. It's ok. I'll trade you Russian for Australian currency. I don't know which is going to be better in the long run. With non-Ethernet WAN interfaces one really needs an extra layer of highly configurable software functionality sandwiched in between the hardware interface unit and the ifconfig layer. The physical hardware interface is a synchronous serial bit stream processor that sends and receives either HDLC frames or ATM cells, and that is where the Hey, sounds like FreeBSD's NetGraph! hardware-dictated part ends. Let's take the case of HDLC as it's more pleasant than ATM: in the case of HDLC the software layer between the HDLC controller and the ifconfig layer needs to do the following: * Let the user choose the encapsulation, and there are many choices: Cisco HDLC, straight PPP (RFC 1662), Frame Relay, PPP over FR (RFC 1973), ATM FUNI, etc. ng_encapsulation_module * If it's a Frame Relay encapsulation, let the user configure DLCIs. Oh, and there can be more than one, hence there may be multiple ifconfig-able entities on the same FR interface. ng_some other module * RFC 1490 (FR) and RFC 1483 (ATM) both allow bridged/MAC-encapsulated and true routed circuits; our software layer should support both, as as well as the possibility of mixing the two on different FR interfaces or different DLCIs on the same interface. These two modes need to look different to the ifconfig layer: if it's a bridged encapsulation, ifconfig needs to see a virtual Ethernet interface (virteth0 or macwan0); if it's a true routed encapsulation, ifconfig needs to see a MAC-less and ARP-less point-to-point interface like ipwan0. ng_bridge, IIRC * Now let's support both HDLC and serial ATM (bit-by-bit cell delineation) if the underlying hardware is capable of both (like Freescale MPC862 and MPC866). Let's provide a user to switch between the two with a simple software command, and let's provide as much commonality as possible between the two configurations: let's support all RFC 1483 encapsulations on HDLC via FUNI, but make the configuration commands look just like ATM. Let's also support FRF.5 by allowing one to take an ATM PVC and treat its payload as a virtual HDLC interface, with possibly many FR DLCIs inside. I think there's ng_atm stuff; I could be wrong. There should be functional ATM code in FreeBSD and if so, I'd be surprised to find it isn't linked into netgraph. I would love to be corrected on this, but I am not aware of anyone having implemented all of the above for Linux (or for any BSD variant) in a clean and generalized manner. Instead what we see is that each vendor of a PCI card for some non-Ethernet WAN interface has their own ad hoc solution which typically comes nowhere close to what I've outlined above in terms of generality and flexibility. FreeBSD netgraph. It's clean, it's generalised, it's just not very well documented. Now here is something I'd like to build which will attempt to solve this mess. I'd like to build a modular WAN router based on the MPC866 chip from Freescale, former Motorola. MPC866 is a PowerPC with one very neat twist: it has 4 serial communication controller (SCC) cores on chip. Each SCC has a traditional 7-wire serial interface coming out of it (Rx data, Rx clock, Tx data, Tx clock, RTS, CTS and CD) and supports both HDLC and serial ATM. (The serial ATM mode supports both bit-by-bit cell delineation for a raw bit stream and octet-by-octet cell delineation for use with a framer that provides octet boundaries.) Have a chat to the FreeBSD community. There's a powerpc port. Shoehorn FreeBSD into it somehow, help tidy up the code to do whateveer you need and start leveraging the very powerful network stack FreeBSD has. FreeBSD-head has support for multiple routing tables which I believe you can just dump netgraph interface nodes into to support VRFs. I'm peripehrally doing something similar as a prototype using FreeBSD/MIPS on ubiquiti hardware - but I'm mostly squeezing my squid fork onto it and making it work right. :) Adrian My modular router would be rather unique in that the interface to the pluggable WAN modules would not be PCI or anything of that sort, instead it would be the 7-wire serial interface coming from an MPC866 SCC, and there would be 4 possible daughtercard slots corresponding to the 4 SCCs. When the interface for pluggable WAN modules is something like PCI, the HDLC or ATM (including SAR) core has to be reimplemented anew by everyone who wants to build a new WAN module for a different flavor of Layer 1 physical interface, and I find it wasteful. The proliferation of such reinvented-wheel HDLC/ATM reimplementations is precisely the reason why there is no universally-accepted standardized framework for non-Ethernet WAN
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
Adrian Chadd adr...@creative.net.au wrote: FreeBSD netgraph. It's clean, it's generalised, it's just not very well documented. [...] Have a chat to the FreeBSD community. There's a powerpc port. Shoehorn FreeBSD into it somehow, help tidy up the code to do whateveer you need and start leveraging the very powerful network stack FreeBSD has. Thanks for the tip - that sounds very nice indeed, very much like what I had in mind. It's nice to know that *someone* in the generic free OS world has had the foresight to design this thing right. (Just to be clear, I have no political preferences between Linux and FreeBSD; to me it's all a matter of what works and what I'm familiar with.) But it won't matter until I build the hardware: I want to build the hardware first, the HW itself will be totally open source as in free schematics and full docs etc, and then we'll think about which free OS(es) we want to run on it. I still want to build my MPC866 router platform though: even if the software part has been solved by the fine FreeBSD folks, with the present situation (PCI as the expansion interface on FreeBSD/Linux-based routers) one still has the issue that the HDLC interface or the ATM SAR block has to be wheel-reinvented each time someone wants a different flavor of Layer 1 physical interface. The situation is even more pronounced when a given Layer 1 medium type (say, T1 or SDSL) exists in both HDLC and ATM flavors. I would really like to be able to have a single hardware card that supports both: it is trivial with MPC86x, but I expect it to be cost-prohibitive to do that on a PCI card. MS
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On 7/3/10 10:43 AM, Alan Bryant wrote: I haven't seen much traffic on this list about Mikrotik or RouterOS, but I thought it was worth a shot as a last ditch effort to get this going. Does anyone know of a solution to connect a POS OC-3 to a router running Mikrotik's RouterOS? I have searched google extensively with varying phrases and nothing helpful comes out of it. Maybe this? It's ATM though. http://www.iphase.com/products/product.cfm/PCI/198 ~Seth
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
Alan Bryant wrote: I haven't seen much traffic on this list about Mikrotik or RouterOS, but I thought it was worth a shot as a last ditch effort to get this going. Does anyone know of a solution to connect a POS OC-3 to a router running Mikrotik's RouterOS? I have searched google extensively with varying phrases and nothing helpful comes out of it. Mikrotik is great at lower end stuff where you have ethernet interfaces. Real POS OC-3 however, ain't in it's repertory and would not be what I would choose to route at those interfaces/speeds. However, if you must 'connect mikrotik to oc-3', you might as well find yourself a cisco router of some kind with a PA-POS-OC3 card and use it as a simple modem. Of course, for the price, you might as well just let the cisco do what you're planning on doing with the Mikrotik and get orders of magnitude of functionality and stability out of it in the process.
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On 7/3/10 12:22 PM, Mike wrote: Alan Bryant wrote: I haven't seen much traffic on this list about Mikrotik or RouterOS, but I thought it was worth a shot as a last ditch effort to get this going. Does anyone know of a solution to connect a POS OC-3 to a router running Mikrotik's RouterOS? I have searched google extensively with varying phrases and nothing helpful comes out of it. Mikrotik is great at lower end stuff where you have ethernet interfaces. Real POS OC-3 however, ain't in it's repertory and would not be what I would choose to route at those interfaces/speeds. However, if you must 'connect mikrotik to oc-3', you might as well find yourself a cisco router of some kind with a PA-POS-OC3 card and use it as a simple modem. Of course, for the price, you might as well just let the cisco do what you're planning on doing with the Mikrotik and get orders of magnitude of functionality and stability out of it in the process. That's what I was going to say. ;) Once you reach SONET land you're no longer playing in the everything is Ethernet playground that they specializes in. I would say that you've outgrown your Mikrotik routers if you need SONET interfaces and it's time to forklift into a Cisco or Juniper. ~Seth
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Mike mike-na...@tiedyenetworks.com wrote: Mikrotik is great at lower end stuff where you have ethernet interfaces. Real POS OC-3 however, ain't in it's repertory and would not be what I would choose to route at those interfaces/speeds. However, if you must 'connect mikrotik to oc-3', you might as well find yourself a cisco router of some kind with a PA-POS-OC3 card and use it as a simple modem. Of course, for the price, you might as well just let the cisco do what you're planning on doing with the Mikrotik and get orders of magnitude of functionality and stability out of it in the process. Thanks for the responses guys. Unfortunately, we just don't have it in the budget for Cisco or Juniper hardware at this time. I was hoping there would be something available for Mikrotik, but I pretty much already knew the answer. While I know a lot of you guys would recommend Cisco or Juniper over anything else, and I also know that you guys probably think if you're needing an OC-3, it's time to invest in the big boys. However, I'm not the one who makes the final say on purchases. So, with all that being said, is there anyone who has any thoughts on ImageStream's products? They have a POS OC-3 card, and the price appears to be considerably lower for the router anyway, not necessarily the card, though. I'm just trying to see what options there are and make the decision off of that. If Cisco or Juniper is the only way, then so be it. I just want to be sure. -- Alan Bryant | Systems Administrator Gtek Computers Wireless, LLC. a...@gtekcommunications.com | www.gtek.biz O 361-777-1400 | F 361-777-1405
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
Mike, Check out http://www.usedcisco.com they have some good prices. -- Christopher Young InterMetro Communications NOC Department imc...@intermetro.net 866-4IMCNOC, (866) 446-2662 805-433-8000 Main 805-433-0050 Direct 805-433-2589 Mobile -Original Message- From: Alan Bryant a...@gtekcommunications.com Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 14:45:26 To: Mikemike-na...@tiedyenetworks.com Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Mike mike-na...@tiedyenetworks.com wrote: Mikrotik is great at lower end stuff where you have ethernet interfaces. Real POS OC-3 however, ain't in it's repertory and would not be what I would choose to route at those interfaces/speeds. However, if you must 'connect mikrotik to oc-3', you might as well find yourself a cisco router of some kind with a PA-POS-OC3 card and use it as a simple modem. Of course, for the price, you might as well just let the cisco do what you're planning on doing with the Mikrotik and get orders of magnitude of functionality and stability out of it in the process. Thanks for the responses guys. Unfortunately, we just don't have it in the budget for Cisco or Juniper hardware at this time. I was hoping there would be something available for Mikrotik, but I pretty much already knew the answer. While I know a lot of you guys would recommend Cisco or Juniper over anything else, and I also know that you guys probably think if you're needing an OC-3, it's time to invest in the big boys. However, I'm not the one who makes the final say on purchases. So, with all that being said, is there anyone who has any thoughts on ImageStream's products? They have a POS OC-3 card, and the price appears to be considerably lower for the router anyway, not necessarily the card, though. I'm just trying to see what options there are and make the decision off of that. If Cisco or Juniper is the only way, then so be it. I just want to be sure. -- Alan Bryant | Systems Administrator Gtek Computers Wireless, LLC. a...@gtekcommunications.com | www.gtek.biz O 361-777-1400 | F 361-777-1405
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
Alan Bryant wrote: I'm just trying to see what options there are and make the decision off of that. If Cisco or Juniper is the only way, then so be it. I just want to be sure. The real issue is that these legacy telco interfaces are just expensive, straight up, and being forced to use these specialized interfaces for your IP connectivity just drives your costs up for no real gain. I bet what you would really love is just a simple ethernet handoff but of course no provider in your area probabbly makes that available. So you get collared into these expensive interfaces that force you to just buy more when you need more connectivity, as opposed to ethernet which could easilly grow to 1000mbps without needing $$$ I/O cards every 155mbps along the way (and loop charges and hassle and pain, etc). On the good news front, there's lots of capable cisco hardware out there you can take multiple interfaces types on, for pretty cheap especially if you look at refurbished gear. Before you run off and make a purchase decision, most of these cisco resellers can really help you decide on the right platform (thats their value add), so if you think you might wind up with an OC3 and 8t1s for example they can help you figure out what NPE (cpu) you need and ram and ios version and such.
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On Sat, 2010-07-03 at 12:22 -0700, Mike wrote: Mikrotik is great at lower end stuff where you have ethernet interfaces. Real POS OC-3 however, ain't in it's repertory and would not be what I would choose to route at those interfaces/speeds. While I agree that Mikrotik and OC-3 don't go together, I don't know why you would suppose that it can't route at that speed. It's a Linux kernel and given the right hardware, can easily handle that much speed. However, if you must 'connect mikrotik to oc-3', you might as well find yourself a cisco router of some kind with a PA-POS-OC3 card and use it as a simple modem. Or ImageStream for about 1/2 (or better) of the price. Of course, for the price, you might as well just let the cisco do what you're planning on doing with the Mikrotik and get orders of magnitude of functionality and stability out of it in the process. More functionality from a Cisco? You MUST be joking. MT (and ImageStream for that matter) can do WAY more than Cisco for a fraction of the price. Both will offer a much better firewall option, infinitely better QOS capability and is easily as good with dynamic routing (BGP, OSPF, etc.). What's more, you can have a spare on the shelf and STILL not spend as much money as you would for a Cisco device. -- * Butch Evans * Professional Network Consultation* * http://www.butchevans.com/* Network Engineering * * http://store.wispgear.net/* Wired or Wireless Networks * * http://blog.butchevans.com/ * ImageStream, Mikrotik and MORE! *
RE: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
I really wouldn't use the word legacy to describe SONET and OC-3's. -Scott -Original Message- From: Mike [mailto:mike-na...@tiedyenetworks.com] Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2010 4:11 PM To: Alan Bryant Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection Alan Bryant wrote: I'm just trying to see what options there are and make the decision off of that. If Cisco or Juniper is the only way, then so be it. I just want to be sure. The real issue is that these legacy telco interfaces are just expensive, straight up, and being forced to use these specialized interfaces for your IP connectivity just drives your costs up for no real gain. I bet what you would really love is just a simple ethernet handoff but of course no provider in your area probabbly makes that available. So you get collared into these expensive interfaces that force you to just buy more when you need more connectivity, as opposed to ethernet which could easilly grow to 1000mbps without needing $$$ I/O cards every 155mbps along the way (and loop charges and hassle and pain, etc). On the good news front, there's lots of capable cisco hardware out there you can take multiple interfaces types on, for pretty cheap especially if you look at refurbished gear. Before you run off and make a purchase decision, most of these cisco resellers can really help you decide on the right platform (thats their value add), so if you think you might wind up with an OC3 and 8t1s for example they can help you figure out what NPE (cpu) you need and ram and ios version and such.
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 07:32:48PM -0400, Scott Berkman wrote: I really wouldn't use the word legacy to describe SONET and OC-3's. It's around 25 years old (work started in 1985, first standards published in 1988) and we now have a ratified 100G Ethernet standard. Much of it is being used to transport subrate links, some of which are derived from even older transport standards. If not legacy, what word WOULD you use? --msa
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On 7/3/2010 17:12, Majdi S. Abbas wrote: On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 07:32:48PM -0400, Scott Berkman wrote: I really wouldn't use the word legacy to describe SONET and OC-3's. It's around 25 years old (work started in 1985, first standards published in 1988) and we now have a ratified 100G Ethernet standard. Much of it is being used to transport subrate links, some of which are derived from even older transport standards. If not legacy, what word WOULD you use? I'd start calling it legacy when it's as easy to order from your telco as X.25 would be. I still see Ethernet circuits delivered via OC-3/STM-1 today with an Overture. If you're throwing OC-3 into the legacy bin you might as well call OC-192 and OC-768 legacy as well. Big deal if the standard is old, apparently it's still useful enough that there isn't a replacement yet. ~Seth
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
Ok, scenario time. I've found a 7206VXR\NPE-G1 w/ 256MB RAM. It has the 3 onboard GigE ports and a PA-POS-1OC3 card in it that should be fine for our OC-3 connection. We need a total of 5 Ethernet ports, not necessarily all GigE. I found this card, PA-2FE-TX that would give us 2 10/100 ports. Everything that I have seen says this should work with the above router. Can anyone confirm this for me? We plan on doing BGP on the WAN side and BGP or OSPF on the LAN side. I'm assuming that I will need to upgrade the RAM on this router. Would I need to upgrade it all the way to the 1GB that it can take? From what i can tell it is not that expensive for the RAM, so we might as well. Will the following IOS version allow us to do all of the above? Cisco IOS Software, 7200 Software (C7200-IS-M), Version 12.4(12), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1) I'm finding it difficult to figure out the IOS versions and what is compatible from Cisco's website. Is this the highest IOS that this router can run? Thank you all for all the incredible help. Hopefully I will be able to repay the community at some point. On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Seth Mattinen se...@rollernet.us wrote: On 7/3/2010 17:12, Majdi S. Abbas wrote: On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 07:32:48PM -0400, Scott Berkman wrote: I really wouldn't use the word legacy to describe SONET and OC-3's. It's around 25 years old (work started in 1985, first standards published in 1988) and we now have a ratified 100G Ethernet standard. Much of it is being used to transport subrate links, some of which are derived from even older transport standards. If not legacy, what word WOULD you use? I'd start calling it legacy when it's as easy to order from your telco as X.25 would be. I still see Ethernet circuits delivered via OC-3/STM-1 today with an Overture. If you're throwing OC-3 into the legacy bin you might as well call OC-192 and OC-768 legacy as well. Big deal if the standard is old, apparently it's still useful enough that there isn't a replacement yet. ~Seth -- Alan Bryant | Systems Administrator Gtek Computers Wireless, LLC. a...@gtekcommunications.com | www.gtek.biz O 361-777-1400 | F 361-777-1405
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
Do you plan on getting full BGP routes from your upstream? If so, go with 1Gb of ram on the NPE G1. I believe that IOS 12.4.25c is the latest version for the 7200VXR series. It's stable, been running it for quite some time. Depending on what you will be doing with this router, will depend on what feature set you'll want. I typically use the Service Provider IOS with IPSEC, 3DES and Lawful Intercept. On 7/3/2010 7:51 PM, Alan Bryant wrote: Ok, scenario time. I've found a 7206VXR\NPE-G1 w/ 256MB RAM. It has the 3 onboard GigE ports and a PA-POS-1OC3 card in it that should be fine for our OC-3 connection. We need a total of 5 Ethernet ports, not necessarily all GigE. I found this card, PA-2FE-TX that would give us 2 10/100 ports. Everything that I have seen says this should work with the above router. Can anyone confirm this for me? We plan on doing BGP on the WAN side and BGP or OSPF on the LAN side. I'm assuming that I will need to upgrade the RAM on this router. Would I need to upgrade it all the way to the 1GB that it can take? From what i can tell it is not that expensive for the RAM, so we might as well. Will the following IOS version allow us to do all of the above? Cisco IOS Software, 7200 Software (C7200-IS-M), Version 12.4(12), RELEASE SOFTWARE (fc1) I'm finding it difficult to figure out the IOS versions and what is compatible from Cisco's website. Is this the highest IOS that this router can run? Thank you all for all the incredible help. Hopefully I will be able to repay the community at some point. On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 7:25 PM, Seth Mattinense...@rollernet.us wrote: On 7/3/2010 17:12, Majdi S. Abbas wrote: On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 07:32:48PM -0400, Scott Berkman wrote: I really wouldn't use the word legacy to describe SONET and OC-3's. It's around 25 years old (work started in 1985, first standards published in 1988) and we now have a ratified 100G Ethernet standard. Much of it is being used to transport subrate links, some of which are derived from even older transport standards. If not legacy, what word WOULD you use? I'd start calling it legacy when it's as easy to order from your telco as X.25 would be. I still see Ethernet circuits delivered via OC-3/STM-1 today with an Overture. If you're throwing OC-3 into the legacy bin you might as well call OC-192 and OC-768 legacy as well. Big deal if the standard is old, apparently it's still useful enough that there isn't a replacement yet. ~Seth -- Chris Gotstein Sr Network Engineer UP Logon/Computer Connection UP 500 N Stephenson Ave Iron Mountain, MI 49801 Phone: 906-774-4847 Fax: 906-774-0335 ch...@uplogon.com
RE: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
I believe that IOS 12.4.25c is the latest version for the 7200VXR series. It's stable, been running it for quite some time. Depending on what you will be doing with this router, will depend on what feature set you'll want. I typically use the Service Provider IOS with IPSEC, 3DES and Lawful Intercept. We plan on doing BGP on the WAN side and BGP or OSPF on the LAN side. I'm assuming that I will need to upgrade the RAM on this router. Would The 15.0 series is available for the 7200VXR. However, unless I'm missing something, note that the Service Provider version doesn't have OSPFv3 for IPv6.You have to go with the Advanced IP series for that. Ray -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 05:12:14PM -0700, Majdi S. Abbas wrote: On Sat, Jul 03, 2010 at 07:32:48PM -0400, Scott Berkman wrote: I really wouldn't use the word legacy to describe SONET and OC-3's. It's around 25 years old (work started in 1985, first standards published in 1988) and we now have a ratified 100G Ethernet standard. Much of it is being used to transport subrate links, some of which are derived from even older transport standards. If not legacy, what word WOULD you use? Legacy (adj.): A pejorative term used in the computer industry meaning it works. - Matt -- Apparently if you are aware that the From: field can be, and often is, forged, you are overqualified to write antivirus software. -- Jamie Zawinski, http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/virus.html
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
12.4 Service provider has IPv6 and OSPFv3. On 7/3/2010 8:09 PM, Ray Burkholder wrote: I believe that IOS 12.4.25c is the latest version for the 7200VXR series. It's stable, been running it for quite some time. Depending on what you will be doing with this router, will depend on what feature set you'll want. I typically use the Service Provider IOS with IPSEC, 3DES and Lawful Intercept. We plan on doing BGP on the WAN side and BGP or OSPF on the LAN side. I'm assuming that I will need to upgrade the RAM on this router. Would The 15.0 series is available for the 7200VXR. However, unless I'm missing something, note that the Service Provider version doesn't have OSPFv3 for IPv6.You have to go with the Advanced IP series for that. Ray -- Chris Gotstein Sr Network Engineer UP Logon/Computer Connection UP 500 N Stephenson Ave Iron Mountain, MI 49801 Phone: 906-774-4847 Fax: 906-774-0335 ch...@uplogon.com
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
Butch Evans wrote: More functionality from a Cisco? You MUST be joking. MT (and ImageStream for that matter) can do WAY more than Cisco for a fraction of the price. Both will offer a much better firewall option, infinitely better QOS capability and is easily as good with dynamic routing (BGP, OSPF, etc.). What's more, you can have a spare on the shelf and STILL not spend as much money as you would for a Cisco device. Yeah, that's what the brochure says anyways, but I don't know of many highly scaled networks using 'mikrotic' and some of the reasons come down to management, software stability and a readily available pool of knowledgeable admins ready to build the next google with it. Don't get me wrong - I believe in linux and am a network operator as well as embedded systems software developer who makes network appliances with it (linux) that do all of the above for use in my network of a 1000+ subscribers, and I sleep very well at night. However, that sleep comes with the price of having to be a linux guru in order to do most network config operations, and in the 8 years I have been eating my own dog food and running in my network now, I've not encountered many who I could successfully pass off network admin duties too for these boxes (quagga, iproute2, ebtables, iptables for instance) and centralized management and configuration control is non-existent. These commercial systems you scoff at also support advanced and important features such as online insertion/removal - which lets you take a card like a gigE switch module, or a fiber/sonet interface, or a ds3, and just plug it in and immediately without a reboot or driver searching/updating/missing dance, start working. Another important difference is that these commercial units are NOT hosts and don't have silly host/desktop type stuff going on within them, like periodic flash writes, file systems filling with junk that causes system hangs, or hundeds of other possible reasons and causes that create 'system down' on host type machines that DON'T affect the commercial boxes, and contribute (in theory anyways) to the continued prospect of very long uptimes and reliable operation. Also basic hardware features like dual and triple redundant power supplies, good fans and overall rugged design that further contribute to long lives (again in theory), that PC/x86 and other COTS SBC type hardware does not have. So in summary, for small jobs, yeah you're right, but once your jobs aren't small anymore and you need more of these features or business continuity becomes really critical, these commercial solutions are far more likely to take you there today. $0.02 Mike-
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
The 15.0 series is available for the 7200VXR. However, unless I'm missing something, note that the Service Provider version doesn't have OSPFv3 for IPv6. is-is
Re: Mikrotik OC-3 Connection
On 7/3/2010 18:32, Scott Berkman wrote: I really wouldn't use the word legacy to describe SONET and OC-3's. The word legacy is applied to any product that has actually shipped
