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  • What is Mikrotik?

    You guys will continue to see me post about Mikrotik.  Most of you will have never heard of it, which is a shame.  Mikrotik is a rich man’s all in one router at a poor man’s price.  It has a huge feature set including OSPF, BGP, MPLS, VPLS, VPN aggregation, 802.1q trunking, superb firewalling, layer 7 firewalling and policy matching,  queueing and much more.  All of this with a cli and an unmatched GUI.  It is a Linux base, though you are locked out of the base OS, which makes it more an appliance than a server.  You can load this on any x86 PC for the low price of $50 for a level 4 license.

    They also sell ridiculously cheap embedded systems at routerboard.com.

    You will hear me talk about their wired implementations most often, but they cut their teeth, and have the highest density of usage as wireless devices.  Most of the WISPs in the area use them for their high features and low cost.  I’ve seen wireless shots, including both sides of the link, getting 50Mb of throughput for a total cost of ~$500!

    Needless to say, it is an exciting product…or I’m just very excitable.

    PS: You can install on a machine and run unlicensed for 24 hours.  Try throwing it on an old box or on a VM and see what you think.  What do you have to loose?

  • Hello

    Well, hello and welcome to my first blog and it’s first post.  I plan to put many pointless things on here that perhaps you will find useful.  That might be asking a lot…heh.

    My name is Greg Sowell and I am currently Lead Network Engineer for FIBERTOWN datacenter in Bryan, Texas.  I’m a CCNP who just recently passed my CCIE written.

    I have many random ideas and projects which will follow soon.

  • Vegas tips for WISPAPALOOZA

    If you are a regular listener or visitor to everything TBW, you already know about WISPAPALOOZA 2017. If not, go learn about it here.

    I thought a good topic to throw out some tips and tricks for first-time visitors as well as regular attendees.

    WISPAPALOOZA is held at the Rio in Las Vegas. Unlike many other cities, Las Vegas hotels do not have widespread shuttle service themselves. You can buy a ticket from a 3rd party shuttle service such as the ones listed here.    You can also take a taxi, a private car, or UBER/LYFT.
    Regardless of what method you take you want to make sure your driver knows you want to be dropped off at check-in desk entrance. Many drivers will drop folks off at the quickest entrance, and then you have to walk all the way through with your bags just to check in.

    Bring a spare battery, if your phone supports such things.  Having an external charger and extra phone cable is extremely helpful. Going back to your room to plug in your phone for “a few minutes” could be a half hour round trip.  Get yourself a battery like this http://amzn.to/2x12Myp

    Just two tips to get you going.

    -Justin

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