Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Routers vs. MikroTik Cloud Router Switch

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.

Incentivized

• L3 Hardware Offloading
• Vlan segmentation
• Traffic troughput
• Port density
• Cost effective
• Port Isolation
• Trunk, access and hybrid configurations

Incentivized

• L3 features like firewall IPsec NAT
• LACP with more than 4 interfaces
• Centralized Management platflorm
• Limited Hardware offloading insight
• Outdated web interface
• CLI usability

Incentivized

Powerful features at a low price: MikroTik Cloud Router Switch provides a good variety of features that are not present on more expensive brands. Flexible deployment options: SwOS for simple switching use cases and RouterOS for more advanced configurations. Winbox is a fast and responsive tool for configuring, maintain and monitoring the traffic or other variable. Why it doesn't score higher, we think that the learning curve for new users could be hard. Sometimes the logic configuration can be unintuitive example: bridge filtering, vlan interfaces. Inconsistent UX Across RouterOS versions, some features may change without clear documentation causing confusion missconfig or incompatibility between versions. Documentation and support are poor, official documentation is fragmented and depht in some cases, the active community should be your best friend.

Incentivized

We chose MikroTik Cloud Router Switch because it met our technical requirements without significantly affecting our budget. MikroTik Cloud Router Switch offers a performance reliable and scalable for access and aggregation roles and is easy to integrate with our existing infrastructure (Mikrotik CCR). While it doesn't offer enterprise-class UX, or automation frameworks out the box, its disruptive focus, control and granular configuration convert it in an attractive option for ISP operations.

Incentivized

• Significant Cost Savings
• Rapid deployment and flexibility
• Bottlenecks in wrong scenario of use
• Manual configuration overhead
• Perception and vendor approval barriers

Incentivized