MikroTik Certifications Series (Article 2): MTCRE - Advanced Routing, OSPF & Multi-WAN Strategy
Introduction
The MTCRE (MikroTik Certified Routing Engineer) certification is the gateway to advanced IP routing in RouterOS. Designed for network engineers managing campus networks, Wireless ISPs (WISPs), and multi-homed enterprise infrastructures, MTCRE focuses on dynamic routing protocols, policy routing, and high availability.
1. Static Routing and Multi-WAN Failover
Static routes remain essential for simple networks and gateway redundancy. By using check-gateway ping and route distance metrics, RouterOS automatically switches traffic to a backup WAN provider during link outages.
# Primary WAN Route with ICMP Check Gateway
/ip route add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=192.168.1.1 distance=1 check-gateway=ping
# Secondary Backup WAN Route
/ip route add dst-address=0.0.0.0/0 gateway=192.168.2.1 distance=2
2. Dynamic Routing with OSPF (Open Shortest Path First)
OSPF is the backbone of interior network routing. It dynamically calculates optimal paths using Dijkstra's Shortest Path First algorithm, automatically converging network topologies when links fail.
Core OSPF Concepts in MTCRE:
- Router ID: Unique IPv4 address identifying the router in the OSPF area.
- Area 0 (Backbone Area): Central area connecting all other OSPF areas.
- LSA Types: Link State Advertisements carrying topology information between routers.
Conclusion
Obtaining MTCRE certification equips engineers to build self-healing, multi-path routing topologies capable of supporting mission-critical enterprise workloads.