As a worldwide leader in IT and fiber optical networking, Cisco switches play a leading role in manufacturing network switches and in providing switching solutions for data center and enterprise networks with large and medium-size forms. MikroTik, a Latvian company which was founded in 1996 to develop routers and wireless ISP systems. Their cloud switches are highly favored by many Ethernet users in recent years. And thus, people are entangled with Cisco and Mikrotik switches. This article would give brief introduction to Cisco and Mikrotik switches, and put emphasis on Mikrotik Switches Vs Cisco Switches.

According to different usage, Cisco divided their switches into the following categories: LAN Access Switches, LAN Digital Building Switches, LAN Core and Distribution Switches, Data Center Switches, Service Provider Switches, Industrial Ethernet Switches, Virtual Networking and Small Business Switches. And every category has its switching series. The Cisco Catalyst series switch delivers ease of management and configuration for small to medium-sized enterprise wiring closets in a single system, without the need for additional modules. The following list is about the Cisco Catalyst series switch.

Comparing to Cisco switches, the total amount of Mikrotik switches is much smaller. According to the official website of Mikrotik, there are only twelve Mikrotik switches. Ethernet smart switches and cloud core router switches are two series switches of Mikrotik switches. The cloud core switch, or cloud router switch, abbreviated as CRS, is a highly configurable switch, powered by RouterOS. They are the new products of Mokrotik switches. For the cloud router switch, there are nine models currently available. Here lists three different cases of the cloud core switch:

• CRS125-24G-1S-2HnD-IN (integrated wireless, indoor case)


• CRS125-24G-1S-IN (indoor case)


• CRS125-24G-1S-RM (rackmount case)

The CPU on both Cisco and Mikrotik switches is used for management purposes (snmp stats, cli management, etc) and it does not affect the data path. Switching is not done in CPU, neither on Cisco nor on Mikrotik. Switching is done on dedicated ASIC chips specifically designed for this job (thus giving wirespeed). So comparing the CPUs won't mean much about forwarding performance - which is the metric you should care about.

One of big problems with Mikrotik switches is their power. The buyers would prefer to pay another couple hundred dollars to have dual power supplies that are removable. And thus, many Ethernet users cannot use Mikrotik in these cases. Comparing to Mikrotik switches, Cisco switches have less power consumption by their advanced technology.

Most network monitoring software systems natively understand, support and auto-detect Cisco devices and support Cisco SNMP OIDs (CPU, temp, load, bandwidth, errors, power supply status, and many other sub-system counters in a Cisco device.

When configuring your existing network monitor system(s), your network monitor system(s) may not even know what a Mikrotik is and probably does not have native built-in MIBs/OIDs used by SNMP to auto-check/monitor a network. Thus, an administrator would probably need to configure the Mikrotik graphic icons and configure all of the SNMP checks for MIBs/OIDs from/to a Mikrotik.

Mikrotik routers and switches are great. Most people like them and use them almost everywhere. However, because Mikrotik is still the new kid on the block when it comes to carrier-grade commercial-grade business grade high-throughput products, it may sometimes be a little difficult to find local network technicians or local phone support for Mikrotik products when adding new equipment into your network. So Cisco switch is more solid and people are more satisfied with them.

Oznake: network switch, core switch, ethernet switches

As one approach of the network agility and mobility lifting/increasing, Software Defined Networking (SDN) uses canned processes to provision the network. It is an emerging technology designed to address mobility and agility. An OpenFlow switch is a software program or hardware device that forwards packets in a SDN environment. With the popularity of SDN network, a lot of people puzzle about if it is necessary to use SDN network switch for SDN network. This article would give a brief introduction to SDN network and SDN switches, and provide a satisfied answer about the necessity of SDN switch for SDN network.

In a software defined networking system, canned processes are used to provision the network. For instance, users should be able to program the network when they want to build a tap, instead of building a network tap using an appliance. SDN makes the network programmable by separating the control plane (telling the network what goes where) from the data plane (sending packets to specific destinations). It relies on switches that can be programmed through an SDN controller using an industry standard control protocol, such as OpenFlow.

A OpenFlow/SDN switch, when it receives a packet, that it does not have a flow for (Match + exit port) will contact a SDN controller(Server) and ask what must it do with this packet. The controller can then download a flow to the switch, possibly including some packet manipulation. Once the flow is downloaded to the switch it will switch similar packets at wire-speed

Having a central server that knows the network layout and can make all the switching decisions and build the paths gives us new capabilities. The advantages of the SDN switches are listed in the below:

1.The SDN controller could route non critical/bulk traffic on longer routes that are not fully utilized.

2.The SDN controller could send the initial couple of packets to a firewall, and once the firewall is happy/accepts the flow, the SDN controller can bypass the firewall thus removing load from the FW and allowing multi-gigabit datacenters to be fire-walled.

3.The SDN controller can easily implement load-balancing also at high data rates by just directing different flows to different hosts, only doing the set-up of the initial flow's.

4.Traffic can be isolated without the need for vlan's, the SDN controller can just refuse certain connections.

5.Setup a network TAP/Sniffer easily for any port or even specific traffic by programming the network to send a duplicate stream to a network monitoring device.

6.It allows for the development of new services and ideas all in software on the SDN controller. OpenFlow-Actions.

SDN Switch Vs. Non-SDN switch

SDN switches are specially produced for SDN networking. A normal switch works independently of the rest of the network.

In a traditional optical switch device, packet forwarding and high-level routing are on the same device. An OpenFlow switch separates the data path from the control path. Separate controller makes high-level routing decisions. The switch and controller communicate by the OpenFlow protocol.

In the old switches you would have to go to the locations of the switch login to the command line and then configure it through the command line. With open flow enabled switches you could program the switch by sending commands through openflow messages. SDN controller helps you to program the switches. In other words, SDN controller uses openflow and gives you an interface to program the switched.

Special SDN data switches are not required to implement software-defined networks. SDN architectures will take many different approaches as they mature and change, and each technology vendor will have a unique take on how to implement SDN. For example, VMware, with its acquisition of Nicira, will implement SDN protocols in its Switch software, which does not require specialized hardware or a controller. Many suppliers are offering specific SDN controllers, such as OpenFlow controllers offered by Big Switch, NEC, HP and IBM, and controllers that are not OpenFlow-specific and use other protocols (offered by Cisco and Juniper).

Oznake: network switch, sdn switch, optical switch, data switch