It looks like the CRS328 is about to be a thing, and I was looking at where it fits in.

Switching Features

• Non-blocking Layer 2 switching capacity
• 16K host table
• IEEE 802.1Q VLAN
• Supports up to 4K simultaneous VLANs
• Port isolation
• Port security
• Broadcast storm control
• Port mirroring of ingress/egress traffic
• STP / RSTP / MSTP
• Access Control List
• MikroTik neighbor discovery
• SNMP
• 10218-byte jumbo frames support
• IGMP snooping
• IEEE 802.3ad and static link aggregation

Quick Specs

• 24 Gigabit Ethernet ports
• 4 SFP+ ports
• RJ45 serial console port
• Non-Blocking throughput: 64 Gbps
• Switching capacity: 128 Gbps
• Forwarding rate: 95.2 Mpps
• Maximum power consumption: 44 W (without PoE
devices connected)
• Supports PoE+ IEEE 802.3at/af and 26 V
Passive PoE (per port individually selected/auto)
• Temperature based fan control
• 1U rackmount
• Selectable power output per port (26 / 48 V)

This switch has an ARM32 CPU, and the hardware incorporates a lot of interesting features that can be thrown into hardware…once it is integrated into ROS. I say ROS, it has SWOS support, but nobody likes or uses SWOS.

Here’s a typical MDU setup; many APs going into a switch. This switch can terminate AF/AT compliant devices as well as standard passive PoE devices. Prior to this switch coming out I would be looking at something like the Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 24(EdgeSwitch ES-24-250W).

They both support port security(mac limiting), storm control(limit broadcast/multicast storms), and I believe DHCP snooping(prevent rogue DHCP servers). The CRS has SFP+ ports while the ES only has SFP ports, so this gives it an advantage there. Price wise the CRS will sell for around $379 and the ES24 sells for around $400, so there’s a slight cost savings from the CRS.

I don’t believe either does dynamic ARP inspection(ensuring that clients can’t spoof addresses), but I can always hold out hope.

While the CRS is new(I can’t yet order one), it seems to have a bit of an edge for my scenarios(MDU environment)…especially as they begin to unlock some of those hardware features.

What say you…interested in giving it a go?