Cisco 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 1000)
MikroTik Cloud Router Switch
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Based on my past and current experiences as a network engineer, they serve and run really well and also simplify our setup where we used them as edge or border or internet gateway routers. And also we used them as Data Center Interconnect, terminating dark fibers using LR or ZR SFP+. Even though they are well suited for enterprise network, there may still be some room for improvement with SRv6.
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.
The ASR 1000 series routers can, as with most devices, improve with additional memory capacity and upgraded chip sets for faster processing.
There seems to be limitations on the number of routing sessions the smaller ASR devices can handle, which can be overcome with proper planning and placement within the network.
The device without a doubts performs at the level required and expected, we can renew it and use it as we have been using it for years. The device can be used as DCI, IPN/ISN, or even private cloud for customer circuit handoff, it also supports IPSec properly. The device is well suited in multiple segments of the network.
All our modular contingency service exercises use this equipment, it allows us to perform this type of exercises very easily, in a controlled and effective way. It is used at least once a month for these types of events. It also allows configuration replication in computers that are under the same model.
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.
We have received training on the equipment, which has made us add more networks on our own, we provide first level support, we validate the publication of the equipment and we can satisfy the needs of our internal clients in terms of the prompt recovery of the affected services
We haven't used any other manufacturer other than Cisco. [H]owever, we have used different models that Cisco offers. The ASR has a little more horsepower than the ISR. Both are very good routers though.
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.
It is a healthy return on investment with planned packed size data. Average unicast latency is low and consistent with small and large packets (barring mid-sized).
Cisco devices last longer and also have a decent trade-in policy to recover some value when equipment is replaced.
Higher concurrent IPSec tunnels are offered, we tested for 1500+, fielding both encrypted and a mix of encrypted and cleartext traffic.
