A couple of the big draws to Mikrotik (aside from the performance and features you get for the price) are Winbox, Torch, and real-time stats. Great features that don't really have an equal elsewhere.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest-IX http://www.midwest-ix.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jared Mauch" <ja...@puck.nether.net> To: "Mark Tinka" <mark.ti...@seacom.mu> Cc: nanog@nanog.org Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2018 6:17:15 AM Subject: Re: IPv6 faster/better proof? was Re: Need /24 (arin) asap > On Jun 22, 2018, at 9:31 AM, Mark Tinka <mark.ti...@seacom.mu> wrote: > > > > On 22/Jun/18 15:05, JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via NANOG wrote: > >> I’m not really sure “you get what you pay for” … compare with OpenWRT … you >> have frequent updates, even in days when some important security flaw is >> discovered, as it happened a few months ago with WiFi. You can even develop >> yourself what you want or pay folks to do it for you. > > No one disputes that, but there is a reason why operators are paying for > MikroTik instead of taking a white box and flashing it with free code > from any number of sources. > > They could either spend time developing free code on white boxes to a > level where it does everything they want, or they could decide for what > MikroTik offers for an integrated solution (hardware + software), the > time and effort are outweighed by the cost, as a function of traditional > alternatives such as Cisco, Juniper, Nokia, Brocade, e.t.c. > > Joe Average has neither the experience nor the inclination to flash > whatever box he has with OpenWRT. You and I do (well, I've grown lazy, > so...). Copy & paste for FTTH service providers dealing with thousands > or millions of customers who want to pay nothing for 1Gbps to their > house, and you quickly see why this is not an easy problem to solve. I’ve found most folks doing Tik need the GUI, etc to interact with the devices. I can’t say I blame them in some ways either. Have you tried to upgrade an IOS-XR device before? One-click updates in Tik are much easier. Even UBNT it’s fairly straightforward. Personally I use Tik for layer-2 stuff, be it media converters or switches where there’s not some other alternative that makes more sense. I’m comfortable with a CLI, but most people I’ve tried to say “hey, use this it’s better” say “I can’t http/https to it, the learning curve is too steep”. - Jared
