Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost
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Well question about this then. Is the EdgeRouter that your talking about here good for a home lab to learn networking fundamentals from?
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@jmoore said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Well question about this then. Is the EdgeRouter that your talking about here good for a home lab to learn networking fundamentals from?
Yep
Even better, until you get into high end stuff, there is really no excusable reason you should see anything else, because it's just to expensive. -
@jmoore said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Well question about this then. Is the EdgeRouter that your talking about here good for a home lab to learn networking fundamentals from?
Yes, very much so. The EdgeRouters are running enterprise networking systems and are deployed themselves by many businesses and work in the same manner as most other enterprise networking gear. If your goal is to learn Cisco networking itself, a UBNT device isn't going to be great for that. If your goal is to learn the technologies and techniques, then it is perfect. UBNT works "like" Cisco IOS and Junos and other players in the space (and is effectively identical to Brocade.)
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Ok thanks. My goal is to learn the general side of things until I have a reason to specialize, which i do not at the moment. I am just trying to learn what makes the most sense right now.
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@jmoore said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Ok thanks. My goal is to learn the general side of things until I have a reason to specialize, which i do not at the moment. I am just trying to learn what makes the most sense right now.
An EdgeRouter X or Lite are both under $100 and will both let you learn a lot of stuff. Same OS, the ERL is just a little more business class with a console port. I use the ERL at home.
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Biggest issue with the EdgeMax line is that actual throughput suffers with any kind of QoS implemented. How much depends on the type of traffic control policy implemented. This causes people with gigabit internet connections to be unable to get full speed on an ERL. But until those are more common it is not a huge issue.
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@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Biggest issue with the EdgeMax line is that actual throughput suffers with any kind of QoS implemented.
This is true to some degree with any router. How much will vary a lot by the device. No idea if the ASA suffers any noticeable amount or a huge amount from this.
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@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jmoore said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Ok thanks. My goal is to learn the general side of things until I have a reason to specialize, which i do not at the moment. I am just trying to learn what makes the most sense right now.
An EdgeRouter X or Lite are both under $100 and will both let you learn a lot of stuff. Same OS, the ERL is just a little more business class with a console port. I use the ERL at home.
I really never recommend the ER-X for anyone except a non-IT home user. As I rarely interact with those type of people I basically never recommend it. It is a great device for what it is and fits that market need perfectly.
If the new UNMS can restore one unit's config into a replacement, that might make the difference in my recommendations.
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@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jmoore said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Ok thanks. My goal is to learn the general side of things until I have a reason to specialize, which i do not at the moment. I am just trying to learn what makes the most sense right now.
An EdgeRouter X or Lite are both under $100 and will both let you learn a lot of stuff. Same OS, the ERL is just a little more business class with a console port. I use the ERL at home.
I really never recommend the ER-X for anyone except a non-IT home user. As I rarely interact with those type of people I basically never recommend it. It is a great device for what it is and fits that market need perfectly.
If the new UNMS can restore one unit's config into a replacement, that might make the difference in my recommendations.
He's just looking for learning how it works. The one ER-X that I've recommended (and that I know is out there) is for my dad at home.
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@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jmoore said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Ok thanks. My goal is to learn the general side of things until I have a reason to specialize, which i do not at the moment. I am just trying to learn what makes the most sense right now.
An EdgeRouter X or Lite are both under $100 and will both let you learn a lot of stuff. Same OS, the ERL is just a little more business class with a console port. I use the ERL at home.
I really never recommend the ER-X for anyone except a non-IT home user. As I rarely interact with those type of people I basically never recommend it. It is a great device for what it is and fits that market need perfectly.
If the new UNMS can restore one unit's config into a replacement, that might make the difference in my recommendations.
He's just looking for learning how it works. The one ER-X that I've recommended (and that I know is out there) is for my dad at home.
True and I would only recommend an ERL in this case because he is more likely to brick it. The console port gets around that.
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@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Biggest issue with the EdgeMax line is that actual throughput suffers with any kind of QoS implemented.
This is true to some degree with any router. How much will vary a lot by the device. No idea if the ASA suffers any noticeable amount or a huge amount from this.
I have no idea if the ASA does either, but the EdgMax line very much does.
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@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Biggest issue with the EdgeMax line is that actual throughput suffers with any kind of QoS implemented.
This is true to some degree with any router. How much will vary a lot by the device. No idea if the ASA suffers any noticeable amount or a huge amount from this.
I have no idea if the ASA does either, but the EdgMax line very much does.
Why is this? Software issue or lack of horsepower in the hardware?
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I have two ER-X's out in the field (two docs have them at home - so far no issues).
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@dashrender said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Biggest issue with the EdgeMax line is that actual throughput suffers with any kind of QoS implemented.
This is true to some degree with any router. How much will vary a lot by the device. No idea if the ASA suffers any noticeable amount or a huge amount from this.
I have no idea if the ASA does either, but the EdgMax line very much does.
Why is this? Software issue or lack of horsepower in the hardware?
Mostly CPU constraints due to the overhead of packet inspection.
They have consistently been adding more things to the offload functionality though. So it is getting better regularly.
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@dashrender said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
I have two ER-X's out in the field (two docs have them at home - so far no issues).
I have 3 or 4 in the field at employee homes that asked for options though the business.
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@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@dashrender said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
I have two ER-X's out in the field (two docs have them at home - so far no issues).
I have 3 or 4 in the field at employee homes that asked for options though the business.
but do you support them?
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@dashrender said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@dashrender said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
I have two ER-X's out in the field (two docs have them at home - so far no issues).
I have 3 or 4 in the field at employee homes that asked for options though the business.
but do you support them?
No. I set them up and gave them the passwords.
As they belong to presidents and such of clients, yeah I will in reality if one fails.
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@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@dashrender said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@scottalanmiller said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
@jaredbusch said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Biggest issue with the EdgeMax line is that actual throughput suffers with any kind of QoS implemented.
This is true to some degree with any router. How much will vary a lot by the device. No idea if the ASA suffers any noticeable amount or a huge amount from this.
I have no idea if the ASA does either, but the EdgMax line very much does.
Why is this? Software issue or lack of horsepower in the hardware?
Mostly CPU constraints due to the overhead of packet inspection.
They have consistently been adding more things to the offload functionality though. So it is getting better regularly.
Because it was brought up offline, I thought I would drop this link explaining offload as it pertains to EdgeMax.
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/115006567467-EdgeRouter-Hardware-Offloading-Explained -
Thanks for all the info. I just have a consumer EnGenius at home and though i havent had a single issue it isn't business grade and I want to start learning more business equiipment and i don't mind investing in myself to learn though i thinik my current router was more expensive than the Edge lite.
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@jmoore said in Comparing Ubiquiti EdgeRouter and Cisco ASA PPS Performance and Cost:
Thanks for all the info. I just have a consumer EnGenius at home and though i havent had a single issue it isn't business grade and I want to start learning more business equiipment and i don't mind investing in myself to learn though i thinik my current router was more expensive than the Edge lite.
A big difference is that the EdgeRouter or a Cisco ASA have a relatively standard enterprise style interface that you can access from the command line. Most consumer gear has no config trees like that and while you might get to play with some similar features, you won't play with them in the same way.
You can get a similar setup to the EdgeRouter with VyOS without having to buy anything.
