TP link business solution

[elvintay07]

Actually can get controller, router and switch separately but 3 power supply lei. Make sense meh? Will this low end cpu limit the performance?

 

[XiaoFu99]

Actually can get controller, router and switch separately but 3 power supply lei. Make sense meh? Will this low end cpu limit the performance?

For numerous power adapter issue, this can be easily resolve if the unit is using standard 12V/19V input with standard barrel DC jack or Type-C.

My room is using a single 65W Gan charger (for mobile phone) to power my 5-ports switch, MoCA and an AP.
My living room is using a single 100W GaN charger (for mobile phone) to power up my ONT, n100 based router and AP.

In general, a modern day GaN charger is more efficient than standard adapter (e.g. 12V/1A or 12V/1.5A) that comes bundle with it.

I'm not so concern about the slow CPU limiting the performance. Rather, I'm more worried about the system freezing up and/or become unstable (yet to hear users kpkb - fingers cross). This unit does NOT have the feature to schedule a reboot itself. So only a human intervene AC reset and a wait of 10mins is possible right now. Oddly enough, you can schedule a reboot of your adopted devices (e.g. AP).

 

[elvintay07]

For numerous power adapter issue, this can be easily resolve if the unit is using standard 12V/19V input with standard barrel DC jack or Type-C.

My room is using a single 65W Gan charger (for mobile phone) to power my 5-ports switch, MoCA and an AP.
My living room is using a single 100W GaN charger (for mobile phone) to power up my ONT, n100 based router and AP.

In general, a modern day GaN charger is more efficient than standard adapter (e.g. 12V/1A or 12V/1.5A) that comes bundle with it.

I'm not so concern about the slow CPU limiting the performance. Rather, I'm more worried about the system freezing up and/or become unstable (yet to hear users kpkb - fingers cross). This unit does NOT have the feature to schedule a reboot itself. So only a human intervene AC reset and a wait of 10mins is possible right now. Oddly enough, you can schedule a reboot of your adopted devices (e.g. AP).

as in the router slow down because of the restrictions? Got usb c port to those dc Jack cable? So far haven’t seen such setup. I don’t think tp link is powered by usb c

 

[xiaofan]

I'm not so concern about the slow CPU limiting the performance. Rather, I'm more worried about the system freezing up and/or become unstable (yet to hear users kpkb - fingers cross). This unit does NOT have the feature to schedule a reboot itself. So only a human intervene AC reset and a wait of 10mins is possible right now. Oddly enough, you can schedule a reboot of your adopted devices (e.g. AP).

Interesting but kind of make sense as well.

The all in one router should be able to schedule the adopted device (eg: AP).

But then the all-in-one router is the brain of the whole system, so it kind of make sense that human intervention is necessary if the user needs to reboot the all-in-one router.

Since the router has VPN server support, can you just using VPN to remote log-in and reboot? Of couse if the router goes haywire and the VPN server is down then you can not do that.

 

[xiaofan]

as in the router slow down because of the restrictions? Got usb c port to those dc Jack cable? So far haven’t seen such setup. I don’t think tp link is powered by usb c

There are many USB Type C to DC Jack converter cable out there. Some of them are pretty cheap as well.

One example: different type of output voltage possible with different cable: 9V/12V/15V/20V, up to 5A
https://www.adafruit.com/product/5452

Edit -- sorry but no idea if they will work with the ER7121PC or not. Looks like NOT as the spec of the ER7121PC says it uses 53.5VDC/2.43A Adapter.
https://www.tp-link.com/us/business-networking/omada-sdn-router/er7212pc/#specifications

 

[elvintay07]

There are many USB Type C to DC Jack converter cable out there. Some of them are pretty cheap as well.

Edit -- sorry but no idea if they will work with the ER7121PC or not.

1 device no problem to use their adapter. If I use ER605 (router - dc), switch (likely AC powered) then controller (maybe dc). So 2-3 adapter. A bit troublesome. Let me talk to TP link. No matter how lousy, I doubt will be worst than those standard mesh

 

[elvintay07]

Strange why can directly from fiber in to ER7212 and by pass modem?

https://static.tp-link.com/upload/manual/2022/202210/20221031/7106509940_ER7212PC_IG_REV1.0.1.pdf

 

[XiaoFu99]

as in the router slow down because of the restrictions? Got usb c port to those dc Jack cable? So far haven’t seen such setup. I don’t think tp link is powered by usb c

Yes, there are such cables and I got mine from taobao. Beside the cable, you have to be extra careful in selecting your charger and connecting your devices to the charger. Not all charger support 12V in PD mode and for multi output configuration, you need to ensure the power distribution is correct as the charger may not have equal output power in such a connection.

Since the router has VPN server support, can you just using VPN to remote log-in and reboot? Of couse if the router goes haywire and the VPN server is down then you can not do that.

Yes, if you can log into your router via VPN, you can initiate a reboot via their control menu.

 

[firesong]

i have a feeling the er7121pc is doing software routing in CPU, the small packet routing performance is bad.

A cheap router with hardware offload will rinse it any day.

Omada is SDN, since it's attempting to clone Unifi. So I am not sure it has hardware acceleration chipsets inside.

Even Ubiquiti initially tried to use other processors, not the basic ARM bao-ka-liao approach. But eventually someone decided just let the software drive it cos it fits into the controller driven SDN ethos better. I think that's why many of us don't really like to use their gateways/edge firewalls and instead prefer pfSense.

 

[sglandscape]

Omada is SDN, since it's attempting to clone Unifi. So I am not sure it has hardware acceleration chipsets inside.

Even Ubiquiti initially tried to use other processors, not the basic ARM bao-ka-liao approach. But eventually someone decided just let the software drive it cos it fits into the controller driven SDN ethos better. I think that's why many of us don't really like to use their gateways/edge firewalls and instead prefer pfSense.

You actually can have SDN and hardware acceleration, it just takes a little more effort from the perspective of the developer.

However at these price points, I doubt it would be.

 

[firesong]

You actually can have SDN and hardware acceleration, it just takes a little more effort from the perspective of the developer.

However at these price points, I doubt it would be.

Yes that's true. However, just observing the trends, they seem to be throwing it all to the ARM processors to do all the work.

In early days, there were some specialised chipsets to do hardware acceleration. Doesn't seem to be the case now. Perhaps it's also easier from a software perspective - one model for everything and just leave it to raw power to do all the work. Specialised chipsets mean more cost to run hardware-specific software.

Seems like Mikrotik is also heading that way by making obsolete all their specialised chipsets (e.g. tile) and consolidating towards ARM based chips. My router is already EOL'd but it still has been receiving updates, so I'm quite happy with it for now.

 

[sglandscape]

Yes that's true. However, just observing the trends, they seem to be throwing it all to the ARM processors to do all the work.

In early days, there were some specialised chipsets to do hardware acceleration. Doesn't seem to be the case now. Perhaps it's also easier from a software perspective - one model for everything and just leave it to raw power to do all the work. Specialised chipsets mean more cost to run hardware-specific software.

Seems like Mikrotik is also heading that way by making obsolete all their specialised chipsets (e.g. tile) and consolidating towards ARM based chips. My router is already EOL'd but it still has been receiving updates, so I'm quite happy with it for now.

The cheapest consumer hardware actually hardware accelerate most of the routing function because they have a rather weak ARM CPU (can tell when you install OpenWRT) in order to get Gigabit wan-to-lan throughput.

When you pay more for your router/switch, most manufacturer take the easy way out and let software do it in order to provide more features.

 

[xiaofan]

The cheapest consumer hardware actually hardware accelerate most of the routing function because they have a rather weak ARM CPU (can tell when you install OpenWRT) in order to get Gigabit wan-to-lan throughput.

When you pay more for your router/switch, most manufacturer take the easy way out and let software do it in order to provide more features.

Indeed I think typical consumer routers using Broadcomm/Qualcomm/MediaTek 64bit Arm Cortex A53/A73/etc CPU will carry out hardware accelerate for most of the routing function.

Reference: MediaTek Filogic 880 for WiFi 7, quad-core Arm Cortex A73 CPU with NPU. The NPU can even do hardware QoS and VPN acceleration.
https://www.mediatek.com/products/broadband-wifi/mediatek-filogic-880
++++++++++++++++
Filogic 880’s embedded CPU features a quad-core Arm Cortex-A73 with large internal cache and speeds of up to 1.8GHz for a class-leading performance of close to 30K DMIPS. With the NPU offloading networking tasks, the CPE is free for device makers to offer OS customization, in-built services and apps for extended functionality, now a regular feature of flagship router/AP equipment.

The in-chip, MediaTek-designed Network Processing Unit (NPU) provides hardware QoS acceleration and Tunneling Offload Engine for VLAN / PPTP / L2TP / GRE. It goes beyond others to work with both Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections, ensuring performance at full speeds while also offloading the main application processor.
+++++++++++++++

Similar reference from Broadcom BCM4916 CPU used in Asus WiFI 7 rotuers like ROG GT-BE98 and RT-BE96U.
https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/wireless-lan-infrastructure/bcm4916
+++++++++++++++
he BCM4916 features a dual issue runner network processor and a high-performance Security Processing Unit (SPU).
+++++++++++++++

It is even more so last time with slower MIPS/ARM CPU (eg: the old MT7621A dual MIPS core at 880MHz)

On the other hand, new generation of general purpose ARM CPU is pretty fast and they have multiple cores, so they are able to do nice 1Gbps and even 2.5Gbps software routing, for example Rockchip RK3588. The Broadcomm BCM2711 (quad-core Arm Cortex A72 CPU) in Raspeberry Pi 4 can do 1Gbps routing as well without issues. Maybe Raspberry Pi 5 will have no issues with 2.5Gbps routing in software (BCM2712 quad-core Arm Cortex A76 CPU). 10Gbps routing is probbaly difficult with typical low cost general purpose ARM CPU.

Intel low power CPU is getting faster and faster and they are even better than the general purpose ARM CPUs. better. No issues with 1Gbps/2.5Gbps routing with Intel N100 (or even some older ones). Intel N305 is said to be able to do 10Gbps routing through software.

 

[Mach3.2]

The cheapest consumer hardware actually hardware accelerate most of the routing function because they have a rather weak ARM CPU (can tell when you install OpenWRT) in order to get Gigabit wan-to-lan throughput.

The ASIC is also the reason why your throughput drops when you turn on features like QoS on some routers. Since the device have to be cheap, corners must to be cut and they won't just throw in an ASIC that can do everything ($$$$) at that price point.

You win some, you lose some.

 

[Apparatus]

How about this OMADA setup for home use..........going WiFi 7?

1) OC200
2) JetStream TL-SX3206HPP 6-Port 10GE L2+ Managed Switch with 4-Port PoE++
3) 2x EAP780 APs

Any comment? Thanks

 

[xiaofan]

How about this OMADA setup for home use..........going WiFi 7?

1) OC200
2) JetStream TL-SX3206HPP 6-Port 10GE L2+ Managed Switch with 4-Port PoE++
3) 2x EAP780 APs

Any comment? Thanks

Missing a main router. OC200 is the AP controller, not a router.

Example Router with 10G ports -- ER8411, about S$579
https://www.tp-link.com/sg/business-networking/omada-router-wired-router/er8411/

From the spec:
Omada App:
Yes. Requiring the use of OC300, OC200, Omada Cloud-Based Controller, or Omada Software Controller.

The overall system should be quite capable but the toal cost is very high. I will think it is not worth the money. You may want to look at Ubiquiti solution which has the lower end U7 Pro (2x2, BE9300) compared to EA780/783 (4x4 on the 6GHz band, BE22000/BE19000).

The following pricing estimation are from Lazada MediaPro

ER8411 -- about S$579
OC200 -- about S$176
TL-SX3206HPP -- about S$769
EAP780 x 2 -- no pricing info yet in Singapore
EAP783 x 2 -- S$999 x2 = S$1998
Total: S$3522

 

[Apparatus]

Missing a main router. OC200 is the AP controller, not a router.

Example Router with 10G ports -- ER8411, about S$579
https://www.tp-link.com/sg/business-networking/omada-router-wired-router/er8411/

Omada App
Yes. Requiring the use of OC300, OC200, Omada Cloud-Based Controller, or Omada Software Controller.

Use my existing eb810v router

Just connect the JetStream TL-SX3206HPP 6-Port 10GE L2+ Managed Switch with 4-Port PoE++ to my existing 10Gbps switch

The OC200 connects to the above Jetstream switch via PoE

That is

eb810v router => existing 10Gbps switch => Jetstream switch

and 4x10Gbps ports on Jetstream switch will be utilised with 1xincoming from existing switch, 2xAPs and 1xOC200

 

[xiaofan]

Use my existing eb810v router

Just connect the JetStream TL-SX3206HPP 6-Port 10GE L2+ Managed Switch with 4-Port PoE++ to my existing 10Gbps switch

The OC200 connects to the above Jetstream switch via PoE

That is

eb810v router to existing switch to Jetstream switch

and 4x10Gbps ports on Jetstream switch will be utilised with 1xincoming from existing switch, 2xAPs and 1xOC200

Okay then, but the total price is still very high and not worth the money.
You may want to look at Ubiquiti Unifi solution which has the lower end U7 Pro (2x2, BE9300) compared to EA780/783 (4x4 on the 6GHz band, BE22000).

ER8411 -- about S$579
OC200 -- about S$176
TL-SX3206HPP -- about S$769
EAP780 x 2 -- no pricing info yet in Singapore
EAP783 x 2 -- S$999 x2 = S$1998
Total: S$3522-S$579 = S$2943

 

[Apparatus]

Okay then, but the total price is still very high and not worth the money.
You may want to look at Ubiquiti Unifi solution which has the lower end U7 Pro (2x2, BE9300) compared to EA780/783 (4x4 on the 6GHz band, BE22000/BE19000).

ER8411 -- about S$579
OC200 -- about S$176
TL-SX3206HPP -- about S$769
EAP780 x 2 -- no pricing info yet in Singapore
EAP783 x 2 -- S$999 x2 = S$1998
Total: S$3522-S$579 = S$2943

Well, 10Gbps devices and 22Gbps WiFi 7 are expensive

 

[xiaofan]

Well, 10Gbps devices and 22Gbps WiFi 7 are expensive

That is true, probably except the ISP bundled TP-Link EB810v and TP-Link HB810 as of now.

BTW, TP-Link Singapore seems to have two pages for EAP783 but the wireless spec is different. Strange. One of them must be wrong. Looks like the 2nd link is wrong.

https://www.tp-link.com/sg/business-networking/omada-wifi-ceiling-mount/eap783/ (BE22000)
https://www.tp-link.com/sg/business-networking/omada-wifi-wifi7/eap783/ (BE19000, seems to be wrong)

Both pages list the same spec -- so it should be BE22000.

• 6 GHz: Up to 11520 Mbps
• • 5 GHz: Up to 8640 Mbps
• • 2.4 GHz: Up to 1376 Mbps

But the second page mentiones BE19000:
11520 Mbps (6 GHz) + 5760 Mbps (5 GHz) + 1376 Mbps (2.4 GHz)