This document provides an overview and agenda for a webinar on limiting bandwidth using Mikrotik routers. The webinar will be presented by Achmad Mardiansyah from the Indonesian company Garda Lintas Cakrawala (GLC) and will include introductions, an overview of bandwidth and bandwidth management, a demonstration of configuring bandwidth limits on Mikrotik routers, and a question and answer session. Background information is provided on GLC, the trainer, Mikrotik products and RouterOS, Mikrotik router naming conventions, and Mikrotik training and certifications. Key concepts that will be covered include what bandwidth is, considerations for applying bandwidth limits, bandwidth management mechanisms like queueing

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Limiting bandwidth using
mikrotik
GLC webinar, 28 july 2016
Achmad Mardiansyah
achmad@glcnetworks.com
Garda Lintas Cakrawala, Indonesia

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Agenda
● Introduction
● Bandwidth
● Bandwidth management
● Demo
● Q & A

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What is GLC?
● Garda Lintas Cakrawala (www.glcnetworks.com)
● An Indonesian company
● Located in Bandung
● Areas: Training, IT Consulting
● Mikrotik Certified Training Partner
● Mikrotik Certified Consultant
● Mikrotik distributor
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Trainer Introduction
● Name: Achmad Mardiansyah
● Base: bandung, Indonesia
● Linux user since ’99
● Certified Trainer (MTCNA/RE/WE/UME/INE/TCE)
● Mikrotik Certified Consultant
● Work: Telco engineer, Sysadmin, PHP programmer,
and Lecturer
● Personal website: http://achmad.glcnetworks.com
● More info: http://au.linkedin.
com/in/achmadmardiansyah
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Please introduce yourself
● Your name
● Your company/university?
● Your networking experience?
● Your mikrotik experience?
● Your expectation from this course?
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What is Mikrotik?
● Name of a company
● A brand
● A program (e.g. mikrotik academy)
● Headquarter: Riga, Latvia
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What are mikrotik products?
● Router OS
○ The OS. Specialized for networking
○ Website: www.mikrotik.com/download
● RouterBoard
○ The hardware
○ RouterOS installed
○ Website: www.routerboard.com
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What Router OS can do?
● Go to www.mikrotik.com
○ Download: what_is_routeros.pdf
○ Download: product catalog
○ Download: newsletter
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How mikrotik naming their product?
● Usually the product is coded like RBXYZ
○ X (X00 series), Y(Y ethernet ports), Z (Z wlan/minipci)
● Other code:
○ U (USB)
○ A (advanced, higher license level, usually above level 4)
○ H (wireless: higher Tx power 23-24dBm, board: higher processor)
○ G (gigabit ethernet)
○ D (dual chain)
○ P (wireless: High Tx Power 25-26dBm)
○ n (wireless: support 802.11n protocol)
○ More detail: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:Product_Naming
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How to find out the Routerboard Architecture?
● Architecture depends on the CPU type that is used on the
routerboard. Example: mipsle, mipsbe, powerpc, x86, tile
● Usualy is designed based on series
● Check: http://www.mikrotik.com/download
● What architecture is your router?
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What are Mikrotik training & certifications?
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Certificate validity is 3 years

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Bandwidth

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What is (digital) Bandwidth?
● The amount of data that is transmitted over a a media for a fixed amount
of time
● Unit: bit per second (bps)
● Unit multiplication: bps, kbps, mbps, gbps
● Is what people sell, buy, get -> commodity
● Bandwidth is a must-have for application

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Is your bandwidth enough?
Yes and no, various answer. Usually, bandwidth is depends on…
● The rate (bps)
● The applications people using
● The time
● Load, etc… etc...
Therefore, managing bandwidth...
● is a kind of art, no fixed rules here
● Can be flexible or rigid
Need a clear definition of what is “enough”

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Bandwidth Management

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If you can’t manage the bandwidth…
● Your bandwidth will never be enough for users
● There will be one user dominating the whole pipe -> Others will complain a lot
● Need a fair share to other user

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Considerations/criteria to apply bandwidth
management
● Applications: browsing, email, ftp, ssh, voip, etc, etc
● Address: single address, network address
● Rate: low/medium/high bit per second
● Amount of traffic: e.g. X GB per month
● Duration: valid for X days
● Committed Information Rate (CIR) -> guaranteed bandwidth
● Maximum Information Rate (MIR) -> what ISP usually sell (e.g. package Z is
up to X mbps)

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What is bandwidth management?
● Bandwidth management is the process of measuring and controlling a
traffic on a network link
● Measured in bit per second (bps)
● Aka. traffic shaper, bandwidth limiter, qos (quality of service)
What we expect after implementing bandwidth management:
● Avoid the link is full (congested)
● Manage fair share of bandwidth for customers. There is no user that
dominating bandwidth
● Applying priority on traffic (queue)

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Implementation (simple model)

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Where the packets
are queued?

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Bandwidth management mechanism
Mikrotik uses Hierarchical Token Bucket (HTB) algorithm for managing the
queue: to define the limit of datarate
Scheduling algorithm:
● FIFO (first in first out)
● RED (Random Early Detection)
● SFQ (Stochastic Fair-share Queue)
● PCQ (Per-Connection Queue)

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Queue size: discard vs delay (limiting vs equalizing)
Rate limiting Rate equalizing
Mechanism discard packets that exceed a
limit
delay packets that exceed a
limit if possible
Queue size (buffer) 0 > 0

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Demo

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Queue type

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Simple queue (general tab)

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Simple queue (advanced tab)

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QA

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End of slides
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