I’ve only ever run into one bug with Cisco. It was fairly minor, but I opened a TAC case. It was resolved in the next release, and I got an email from them to tell me it had been resolved.
The big guys also tend to have 2 release tracks, like Cisco has the M and T tracks. The term “latest stable release” actually means something. You might need the latest T track release for some bleeding edge feature or hardware, otherwise you are unlikely to run into bugs, and if you do, the bug is probably documented. They also are unlikely to tell you (like Mikrotik) that you need to upgrade to the latest FW to get any support. Of course the difference is paid vs. free + community support, I don’t really fault Mikrotik for this. But given how often Mikrotik releases new FW with major new bugs, asking you to upgrade first is like telling you to jump from the frying pan into the fire. It doesn’t resolve your original bug, but now you have several major new ones, and you hope that you can downgrade successfully. It’s kind of like the ongoing debate about RedHat which is stodgy enterprise software vs other Linux distributions where you don’t have to wait years for the latest features but also have to accept some risks and rely on the community for support. From: Mike Hammett Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2016 8:12 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download I never said Mikrotik was at the total performance scale of the others. I'm saying that there are major bugs or feature modifications on multiple platforms by the big guys that go ignored, just like we have. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Paul Stewart" <p...@paulstewart.org> To: af@afmug.com Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2016 7:51:39 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download Hmmm.. disagree on that one. I have been part of those conversations for years (including at NANOG amongst other places) and everyone has opinions of course…. Microtik doesn’t make anything remotely even close to the scale of what a typical “international operator” uses in their core network – it’s not the market use they were designed for. So, of course there’s always going to be someone sitting at a table complaining about the support costs of Cisco, Juniper etc and all the issues they have…. But that’s not a good comparison to bring Microtik into the conversation. In my $$job, we typically run Cisco Nexus 7k/5k/2k for switches and Juniper MX2010/MX480/MX240 for routing. Between those two specific vendors I can tell you that we only have a handful of tickets open for anything of serious nature. Those tickets are escalated to their engineering groups who replicate the problems, work on fixes, test the fixes, and deploy them in upcoming release. Now I’m not suggesting these companies are perfect … far from it … but they have the resources and capabilities to work with us to resolve the problems – some of these issues are very “corner case” problems that we sometimes joke about “why is it always us that finds these issues?”. The support is very expensive sure, but that’s the cost of doing business, and for me I want that support backing for the business. Paul From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mike Hammett Sent: Friday, January 15, 2016 8:37 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download The #1 thing I learned at NANOG was that the big vendors are just as full of shit as the little vendors. Cisco, Juniper, AlcaLu, etc. are all just as likely to ignore problems and create bugs as Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, etc. When sitting at a table at about 1 AM one night with a head engineer with one international operator and one national operator I said something to the effect of, "I've just largely been listening to you guys comparing notes on different products and issues you've had. I use Mikrotik routers in my network and people often say they are junk and that Cisco, Juniper, etc. are the way to go. Those vendors are exactly who you guys use and yet here you are with the same type of complaints as we have with our vendors." The one at the international vendor chimed in, "and we pay 10x more for that right." Don't lose sight of that. For example, Cisco is known for having Ethernet chipset incompatibility issues.... which is exactly what this sub-topic has been about. To think otherwise is simply blind arrogance. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Eric Kuhnke" <eric.kuh...@gmail.com> To: af@afmug.com Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2016 10:49:12 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download This is sort of an illustration of why I am still very wary of Mikrotik for routers. There's a myriad of Cisco routers available with 12 to 20 SFP-based GbE interfacess (used/refurb) that are just as capable, if somewhat bigger and hotter, that run very stable versions of IOS. It's totally unacceptable for Cisco to break basic functionality for $HUGE_ISP and $HUGE_ENTERPRISE_CUSTOMER , which are usually using the same IOS trains I use for service provider functions. Mikrotik OS software support is pretty much "hey go over to this forum and hope somebody answers your question", if something is broken you are just supposed to wait for a new version release in a month or two. If something is fundamentally broken in a version of IOS used by a mature (6+ year old) Cisco platform it's almost certain that somebody much bigger and more important than yourself has already run into the issue, escalated it with Cisco, and a new build fixing the bug is available. If the space and power are available I would much rather have a 6503E with dual supervisor than a CCR.... On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 7:34 PM, Rory Conaway <r...@triadwireless.net> wrote: This just gets even better. Worked 24 hours, then breaks again. Up to Level 4 tech support. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Rory Conaway Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2016 7:56 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download We are taking it to the Mikrotik forum. This makes no sense since we have 12 of the already running with no issues. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2016 7:54 AM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download I’m not terribly happy with ROS since 6.29. Maybe it’s just still not 100% yet. From: Rory Conaway Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 8:36 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download Replaced the Mikrotik routers with an Airrouter, it works. Replaced with an Edgerouter, still works. This goes under the category of WTF. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Rory Conaway Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 9:13 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download We tried 3 Mikrotik routers, 2 cable modems, and two radios from two different manufacturers. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Glen Waldrop Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 8:52 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download MTU? Last time I had that problem was an inconsistent Ethernet connection. It wasn’t showing errors, but UDP was dropping packets. TCP retransmitted. UDP was screwy, but TCP was downloading at the limit of the wireless feed. From: Rory Conaway Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 9:47 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download Nailed the problem down to the Mikrotik router having a problem with DNS caching whether it’s Cox or Google. Not sure where to go from there since the other 12 don’t have a problem. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Rory Conaway Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 4:44 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download We had raons bit no dangling cables. Level 3 says no errors to the modem and we had a tech out already. We are changing the 2011 to a 450 just to confirm before we eacalate further. Rory Conaway Triad Wireless Typed on my phone with one finger so please excuse typos and abbreviations. -------- Original message -------- From: That One Guy /sarcasm <thatoneguyst...@gmail.com> Date: 1/11/2016 10:38 AM (GMT-07:00) To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download If it just started and youre in an area hit by storms, some of the neighbors, mostly the empty houses with no tenants at this point, cable was busted down by tree limbs and is dangling terminated byt the mud now On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Glen Waldrop <gwl...@cngwireless.net> wrote: Likely an RF issue on the cable side. I see this sort of thing with the company I consult for. They’ll have me going through the router, trying to shut down the “virus” or peer to peer when it is thousands and thousands of retransmits and broken packets. Just like our wireless it can have good quality until loaded, then watch the quality drop to nearly nothing and loose connection. From: Rory Conaway Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 8:25 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download The Netgear router has nothing to do with it, I was just using their website as an example of downloading a file. It’s computer, 2011, cable modem, the world. I just can’t download anything from any sites. What’s weird is they just drop. Rory From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 5:12 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download You mention Netgear, is this a Netgear router? They used to have a problem with downloads stalling, but that was quite a few years ago. The fix was to disable SPI Firewall. From: Rory Conaway Sent: Sunday, January 10, 2016 6:06 PM To: af@afmug.com Subject: [AFMUG] Weird Problem with download We have a cable circuit that can do everything except download. There is a Mikrotik router between the computer and the cable modem. Haven’t tested taking the router out yet but we have tried 2 routers, same results. Basically, downloads either don’t start or start and then just crash. Game machines can’t update, even downloading a 20MB file from netgear fails. Everything else seems to work. Any ideas would be helpful. Rory Conaway • Triad Wireless • CEO 4226 S. 37th Street • Phoenix • AZ 85040 602-426-0542 r...@triadwireless.net www.triadwireless.net “Life is full of unfair calls, missed plays, and bad catches. But true baseball players keep on playing” - Lessons from Baseball -- If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team.