Getting started with mezzanine adapters
A huge variety of mezzanine adapters, also known as Virtual Interface Cards (VICs), is available from Cisco for both B-series blade servers and C-series rack servers. Older adapters are of the fixed port type and are not optimized for contemporary virtualized server environments. There are some older third-party network cards also available as an option. Newer adapters are optimized for virtualization and can provide 128 or 256 dynamic virtual adapters. The number of virtual adapters is dependent on the VIC model. These virtual adapters can be configured as Ethernet (vNIC) or fiber channel (vHBA) devices. All virtualization-optimized VICs also support the VM-FEX technology. Our focus will be on those mezzanine adapters that are virtualization optimized.
VICs for blade servers
VICs are available in the form of a mezzanine card. All new VICs provide dynamic vNIC or vHBA interfaces for server-side connectivity.
The specifications of VIC 1280 are as follows:
- 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces
- VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
- Hardware failover without driver need
- 80 Gbps network throughput
- Mezzanine form factor
- Compatible with UCS M2 (B230 and B440) and all M3 blade servers
The specifications of VIC 1240 are as follows:
- 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces
- VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
- Hardware failover without driver need
- 40 Gbps network throughput with optional 80 GB throughput using optional port expander in the mezzanine slot
- LoM form factor
- Compatible with all M3 blade servers
VICs for rack-mount servers
VICs are available as PCIe cards as well. All new VICs provide dynamic vNIC or vHBA interfaces for server-side connectivity.
The specifications of VIC 1225 are as follows:
- 256 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces
- VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
- Hardware failover without driver need
- 20 Gbps network throughput
- Compatible with UCS M2 (C460 and C260) and all M3 rack-mount servers
The specifications of VIC P81E are as follows:
- 128 dynamic vNIC (Ethernet) or vHBA (FC) interfaces
- VM-FEX support for virtualized environments
- Hardware failover without driver need
- 20 Gbps network throughput
- Compatible with UCS M2 (C460 and C260) and all M3 rack-mount servers
Note
For a quick comparison of mezzanine card specifications, please visit http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10277/prod_models_comparison.html#~tab-a.
Cisco VICs are also famous by their code name, Palo.