Presentation

Mikrotiks are the brexit of routers. A lot of people seem to irrationally like them, and say that you will have more money if you choose them, but ultimately you will be left with a big feeling of disappointment and something that doesn't really work.

It’s no secret that we use MikroTik’s — and other vendors’ — network devices at Faelix. While we’re not wedded to any vendor, we’ve got something of a soft spot for this “little” Latvian upstart in the routing world. However they’re not a manufacturer to everybody’s taste. Sentiments like those quoted above illustrate that their software (and maybe their hardware) is something of a “Marmite” within the network operations industry.

The good folk at NetMcr were expecting January to be something of a quiet month, and asked if there was anything I could give a short talk about at short notice. Dispelling a few MikroTik myths was the subject we settled upon, and so I pulled together a quick introduction into this platform.

Marek Isalski @maznu getting started on the first & only talk we have tonight: Mikrotik & RouterOS. Crushing a few myths! pic.twitter.com/m8nOfdxdYR

I wanted to try to cover the breadth of hardware that MikroTik makes, along with some of the common use-cases and configuration examples for RouterOS. I wanted to make it clear that RouterOS has — just like any vendor — sharp edges in their implementations that can catch a network engineer by surprise. With experience and a bit of research, though, it’s quite an interesting ecosystem with a rather compelling set of economics for small providers. It’s no wonder they are so popular in countries like Brazil, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Indonesia, and beyond.

Read more in the PDF presentation, or the write-up on NetMcr’s website — which left me blushing with pride. Thanks again to the NetMcr team, and keep up the great work building this community in the North!