Any networking professionals in the house?

[Canyonero]

I guess I'm a "networking professional", I'm the admin for a small ISP that needs to modernize. The bulk of our customers are on fixed wireless systems from Trango Broadband, which we are going to be transitioning away from for a variety of reasons. We're going to use Mikrotik routers on the backend to provide PPPoE and authentication services for the new systems and we'd also like to transition the current customers that way as well (static NAT IPs :/ ).

Anyone here to talk to about CIDR, OSPF, VRRP, and so on? My questions are not vendor specific. I thought I would find more help at the mikrotik forums, but that is not the case...

[60dgrzbelow0]

https://supportforums.cisco.com/index.jspa

[pocket-rocket]

I guess I'm a "networking professional",

But you > me as far as that goes. I'm just A+ and Net+ certified which means jack squat in the real world (despite them making it sound like I would be hounded by places wanting to hire me left and right when I signed up for my classes....) because I am still unemployed almost a year after getting my certs.

[Canyonero]

https://supportforums.cisco.com/index.jspa

We don't have any Cisco gear, so I haven't ventured that way.

Our core router is a Riverstone, but they went under some years ago, bought out my lucent. Right now it's running the show, everything beyond is L2 switched (which is a problem). The riverstone has been plenty reliable, and we have a spare of course, but there isn't much support out there anymore. The RS will remain the core router, but I'm going to integrate mikrotiks to support the wireless system, talking back to the riverstone with OSPF.

But you > me as far as that goes. I'm just A+ and Net+ certified which means jack squat in the real world (despite them making it sound like I would be hounded by places wanting to hire me left and right when I signed up for my classes....) because I am still unemployed almost a year after getting my certs.

I have no formal certs, just my four years experience here. So I know the way we're set up now, and I know ABOUT some other ways to do things, but actually implementing is another matter.

[60dgrzbelow0]

Even without the Cisco gear... some of these White Papers/Books/Tutorials on L2 switching can be very revealing and add to the insights with other similar networking hardware... Although the books are pricey at $35.00 to $45.00 the information discussed looked promising on the subject:

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.learnmikrotik.com/?gclid=CL-7w-WCkp8CFSBqswodgwv6ZQ

http://www.mikrotikrouter.com/

http://mikrotik-link.blogspot.com/

http://www.hotspotsystem.com/en/hotspot/install_guide_mikrotik.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAgwlvp9iCA

http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=101367

http://www.ciscopress.com/articles/article.asp?p=170742&seqNum=2

http://www.alliedtelesyn.com.hk/media/datasheets/howto/conf-l3-mac_sd_c.pdf

[Canyonero]

L2 switching is what I'm most familliar with, but I'm getting into routing now. I've quite a bit of reading already. I'm to the point where I just have to put some routers together on the bench and figure it out. Was hoping there was someone with some routing experience I could ask questions.