A Router Inside the Server?

To begin with, this NIC can be easily installed within the server itself, saving you loads of trouble of finding additional space to add a full-sized 1U Ethernet router.

Along with a quad-core ARM 64-bit CPU, 4 GBs of RAM, and a single gigabit Ethernet port for management, the CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe bears 2 SFP28 cages that allow you to conduct routing operations with a 25G traffic rate. What's more, this interface card will easily be powered by the server motherboard and thus, there will be no need for running more cables around the server room.

To find out more, check out the video below and let Normunds explain:

Once you run this device on your server, it will show as four virtual Ethernet interfaces, two of which are in passthrough mode to the 25G SFP28 cages while the other pair are bridged with the single Ethernet port for management.

Quite importantly, this device offers you a unique feature. If you employ this NIC with the Passthrough mode and connect it to a virtual machine - a Cloud Hosted Router (CHR), for instance - all interfaces will be detected as regular interfaces and the device will be shown as a native hardware, which can perhaps be regarded as one its main benefits and functions.

The catch? This device uses a regular, comparatively inexpensive ARM CPU, instead of the costly dedicated networking ASIC chip!

And don't even think about being limited. This MikroTik device will help you to configure all interfaces and settings, such as firewalls, user management, access control for media and file servers, and even some traffic control in data centers. Rest assured, a fully functional RouterOS will be running on this interface.