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Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

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Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#11

Post by buildbot »

consp wrote: post #10
benj111 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, my only other guess was digital audio cable. TLAs (three letter acronyms) are hard.

In the network world context it's quite obvious and I guess that is what it is written for. For those not in that context I guess it's quite understandably confusing.

Also either network people get it wrong, or the optics modules really are DACs? Now I am confused too haha : https://serverlabs.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-study-about-sfp-mo...

Tangentially… you could build a SFP module that uses a digital to analog converter, outputting the data as a range of voltages vs 1/0s. Hook it up to a speaker for terrible audio. Then listen to it with a microphone hooked up to an Analog to digital converter sfp module on the other end!

Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#13

Post by flumpcakes »

buildbot wrote: post #11
consp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the network world context it's quite obvious and I guess that is what it is written for. For those not in that context I guess it's quite understandably confusing.

Also either network people get it wrong, or the optics modules really are DACs? Now I am confused too haha : https://serverlabs.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-study-about-sfp-mo... Tangentially… you could build a SFP module that uses a digital to analog converter, outputting the data as a range of voltages vs 1/0s. Hook it up to a speaker for terrible audio. Then listen to it with a microphone hooked up to an Analog to digit…

99% of the time when someone is talking about 'DAC' in a physical networking context it will be direct attached cable.

These types of cables are literally just copper wire connecting pins at either end. In comparison to fibre optics which require transceivers with their own logic and encoding circuitry within the SFP modules themselves.

Edit: I think this article is actually pretty harmful, I don't think people would normally think of networking as DAC/ADC...

> When it comes to copper cable communications, digital signals are converted as electric signals (analog signals).

The signal is still digital, it's not "analog" at all. Is data being read from your hard drive over a SATA cable "analog"?

You would call the chip that does the encoding for the physical medium the 'PHY' chip - not an DAC/ADC.

Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#14

Post by mrweasel »

Roritharr wrote: post #2

I just bought this the other day to setup a VPN to guard the IPMI interface in a 2U server I could cheaply house in some otherwise unmanaged rackspace. It's a pretty nifty piece of kit, but I still have to get better at understanding RouterOS.

I've been playing around with RouterOS, but it's not the easiest thing to get started with. There's plenty of documentation, but it often feels like they really want you to take the Mikrotik training, rather than you figuring it out for yourself. It's really interesting hardware though.

Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#16

Post by tyingq »

ZiiS wrote: post #3

The only odd thing is the price: Given it is the cheapest NIC in its class it should be a mass market product in high demand. The fact you get a free router built in is a cherry on top for the few who need it. If so why is it in such limited supply? Alternatively it is a way to save rack space for people who need to squeeze in a router that doesn't fit. But if this is a niche marker router why is it so cheep?

> why is it in such limited supply?

The article makes a pretty good case that it's because it's poorly described, marketed, documented, etc. It might be a unique gem, but nobody can figure out what it can really do, what it's sweet spot is, etc. So, low demand means low supply.

Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#17

Post by zamadatix »

tyingq wrote: post #16
ZiiS wrote: post #3

The only odd thing is the price: Given it is the cheapest NIC in its class it should be a mass market product in high demand. The fact you get a free router built in is a cherry on top for the few who need it. If so why is it in such limited supply? Alternatively it is a way to save rack space for people who need to squeeze in a router that doesn't fit. But if this is a niche marker router why is it so cheep?

> why is it in such limited supply? The article makes a pretty good case that it's because it's poorly described, marketed, documented, etc. It might be a unique gem, but nobody can figure out what it can really do, what it's sweet spot is, etc. So, low demand means low supply.

It never really got a chance to be in demand though. It was announced, received a ton of press, had a delay u til a paper launch, then has staid somewhere between "hard to find" and "not available" since. A lot of MikroTik products tend to be niche but they aren't usually this difficult.

Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#18

Post by cedricgle »

Roritharr wrote: post #2

I just bought this the other day to setup a VPN to guard the IPMI interface in a 2U server I could cheaply house in some otherwise unmanaged rackspace. It's a pretty nifty piece of kit, but I still have to get better at understanding RouterOS.

Does it support DPDK for fast packet processing or maybe SR-IOV ?. Given the price tag, I suppose it doesn't, but the documentation is sparse.

Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#19

Post by zamadatix »

flumpcakes wrote: post #13
buildbot wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also either network people get it wrong, or the optics modules really are DACs? Now I am confused too haha : https://serverlabs.blogspot.com/2019/10/a-study-about-sfp-mo... Tangentially… you could build a SFP module that uses a digital to analog converter, outputting the data as a range of voltages vs 1/0s. Hook it up to a speaker for terrible audio. Then listen to it with a microphone hooked up to an Analog to digit…

99% of the time when someone is talking about 'DAC' in a physical networking context it will be direct attached cable. These types of cables are literally just copper wire connecting pins at either end. In comparison to fibre optics which require transceivers with their own logic and encoding circuitry within the SFP modules themselves. Edit: I think this article is actually pretty harmful, I don't think people would…

Fully agree. Thinking of network transceivers as digital to analog converters (DACs) is just as conflating as thinking of pulse width modulation (PWM) controllers as DACs. Analog to digital converters (ADCs) and DACs are referring to the fact the actual analog signal you input/output is the ground truth value of the data not that the digitally encoded signal is being sent in the real world on a wire. The difference is if the signal is distorted on the way to the other end of the cable it's still (within tolerances) decoded back to the same digital value despite the changes in the physical signal.

Re: Review: A Dive into Mikrotik's Weird SmartNIC (2022)

#20

Post by Krasnol »

Roritharr wrote: post #2

I just bought this the other day to setup a VPN to guard the IPMI interface in a 2U server I could cheaply house in some otherwise unmanaged rackspace. It's a pretty nifty piece of kit, but I still have to get better at understanding RouterOS.

Had a router by them for a long time. It was fantastic but it took me months to set it up in a way that I'd be confident to put it to live service. It was a nice hobby project, and it paid off.

Now I had replaced it with a FritzBox as it's popular here in Germany, and my SO may be able to do something with it when I'm not there. As a new hobby project, I have a RB5009UG+S+IN lying around...waiting for me to get into the flow again...maybe around Christmas...

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