Soldato
I have no use/need for a US‑16‑XG but I now want one, thanks guys 
10G network with 3 hosts
- Thread starter colskinet
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Unless you really need the bandwidth between the desktop and the servers, or between the servers and the router, I would add 1gbe cards to the servers for their external connection and double up the back to back connection between them.
If you really need the bandwidth get 10gbe switch. You can get an 8 port one for about £500.
If you really need the bandwidth get 10gbe switch. You can get an 8 port one for about £500.
Permabanned
But the Mikrotik is about the same price and has full 10g capable SFP+ ports... it's also better than the Ubiquiti device
Soldato
Exactly! £400 for 16 ports of SFP+ switching goodness and you don't need an external controller for it.
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Soldato
Looks like you can get them for £275 now
UK based distributor including VAT? Cheapest I can find is £308.
Permabanned
Not sure, it was a quick google... just a pleasant surprise
Permabanned
Yeah, I haven't used that specific model... but have a variety of their other kit... for the price, the performance and reliability are hard to beat.
I'd be interested to see one in action in a very high traffic environment... that's where cheaper switches tend to fall over.
For the OP's use... seems perfect... especially at that price... even the UK prices aren't bad... and I'd be more inclined to trust it than the Ubiquiti.
We have a lot of their P2P wireless links in use that have been running flawlessly for years.
Soldato
Mikrotik are fine until you need support. I did ALL their training at their home office in Latvia just before Christmas (2 full weeks) and one of the first things they said was “Don’t tell anyone anything unless they pay for it”. If you ask a question on Mikrotik’s forums you get 30 PMs from people offering to VPN into your network and sort it out for $50-$500 per issue. And no responses on the forums themselves. And if you dare to point out that no-one helped you you get slagged off in every thread because you can’t sort yourself out.
Compare that to the UBNT support where the forums are awash with people who will help you out if they can and there are hundreds of YouTube videos explaining how to do everything and anything.
I use Mikrotik extensively for all sorts of customers who don’t want anything special or who won’t pay for UBNT (which itself is cheap as chips) but don’t kid yourself it’s anything but cheap ‘n cheerful kit made for the Russian WISP market.
Don
That's interesting. Been itching to have a play with mikrotik gear.
Soldato
What a total load of ****!
I’ve asked loads of questions and never had anyone offer to VPN in for a fixed fee, I also contribute a lot and as far as I am aware have never asked for anything in return.
The MikroTik community is really good and helpful, the support is great for hardware issues but software how do I is Best in the community.
Soldato
Your experience obviously differs greatly from mine.
As an example though, I use the same username on their forums (and on UBNT) so you can do a search and see the responses I got when asking about how to configure an SXT LTE for use with EE. I got absolutely ripped to shreds for not knowing that you had to enter the user details and PIN on 3 separate menus. The “instructions” are to enter the username, password and PIN on the quick setup screen, but they neglect to mention that unless you have upgraded the firmware to a point beyond any unit sold it doesn’t copy the details into the other two locations automatically.
But I’m sure other people will be overloaded with helpful posts. Or not. The great thing about this is you pay your money and take your choice.
Permabanned
I haven’t had to try and find Mikrotik support or training. I found my own way around the interface fine and only ever had one issue so far with a good number of devices. Fixed it myself.
Soldato
Wish I’d have seen that. Funnily enough my testing with same hardware required no user details at all.
MikroTik hardware is utter garbage for wireless client access and I will die on this hill. Trying to get help on their forums about it results in being told that Wi-Fi isn't meant to be good, and 40Mbps of throughput from an 802.11ac radio is perfectly acceptable because it's not slowing down their 5Mbps janky connection.
It's cheap though, but I can't see the value proposition unless you're in the business of charging per hour to support the kit. The amount of time you burn trying to get it to behave is enough to buy more or less anything else from a different provider.
If you really need to save less than one hours billable time vs. buying something from Ubiquiti or a day vs. getting something from Cisco/Juniper/Cambium/Mimosa/whatever then go for it. Seems a dumb decision to make though.
It's cheap though, but I can't see the value proposition unless you're in the business of charging per hour to support the kit. The amount of time you burn trying to get it to behave is enough to buy more or less anything else from a different provider.
If you really need to save less than one hours billable time vs. buying something from Ubiquiti or a day vs. getting something from Cisco/Juniper/Cambium/Mimosa/whatever then go for it. Seems a dumb decision to make though.
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Soldato
Really? So you just inserted the EE SIM card and it connected and passed data? No configuration whatsoever? I’ve installed 8 of these units and they all required extensive configuration to work with EE SIM cards.
I’m sure you know they’ve basically stopped doing the SXT LTE in favour of the new wAP LTE kit which is a shame but the wAP has Configuration scripts for the various SIM card providers in the EU. But even then they need the PIN to be entered (usually 0000).
Soldato
I've reset and reconfigured the SXT multiple times, never once had to put any deails in to get it to talk to the mobile network. I've actually been strongly behind asking them to provie an "lte-bridge" mode as I'm not happy with the overall routing performance of the SXT and would prefer to offload the NAT, Firewall and ideally a VPN client onto something with more
I've also only just recently set up a WAP LTE kit as well which was using a 3 sim, it was literally plug and go (of course I blank wiped it anyway and configured to my liking) but never had any issues whatsoever with getting connectivity. Great for a sales team who go to conventions and the like to demo IP connectivity on products where there may/may not be internet provision (and to give them access to take orders).
Soldato
I’m almost wondering if we’re talking about the same device because that’s EXACTLY how I use the SXT in my applications. I turn off the DHCP server, and the NAT and the Firewall and just pass the feed to WAN 2 on a USG 4P. Because DHCP is turned off you need to enter the username and password in the USG but it works really well.
UBNT make it INCREDIBLY hard to use a 3G/4G source with their kit. Given that every UBNT device has some form of USB access it beggars belief that they can’t allow access to that port for a 4G SIM card USB key. Even on the UAS-XG they made it difficult if you use the on-board controller because the controller has no mechanism to see USB ports as WAN ports. Hopefully in 5.8.7 when you can allocate an port as a WAN or LAN port, it will be possible and I can dispense with the SXT completely.
I’ve only seen the wAP LTE on the training course as they just launched it last October I think. Supplies are very limited and I still have 3 SXTs in stock to use up first. Plus if the UAS-XG can use a USB Key then potentially I’ll have a glut of SXTs to get rid of.