Cisco N20-AC0002 enterprise networking (router/Catalyst switch/UCS families) Server Hardware / Parts

The Cisco N20-AC0002 is the UCS M81KR Virtual Interface Card (VIC), a PCIe mezzanine adapter providing two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports for Cisco UCS B-Series blade servers, marketed under the internal codename “Palo”. Rather than presenting as a single fixed NIC, the M81KR uses Cisco VN-Link/VM-FEX technology to carve its two physical uplinks into up to 128 virtual PCIe interfaces (a mix of virtual NICs and virtual HBAs), which the hypervisor and UCS Manager can then assign individually to virtual machines. It fits the mezzanine slot on B200 and related B-Series blades within a UCS 5108 chassis, connecting up through the chassis I/O modules to the fabric interconnects. This card was central to UCS’s original converged-networking pitch, letting a single physical adapter replace what would otherwise be several separate NICs and HBAs per blade, and it remains a working option on legacy first- and second-generation UCS B-Series deployments still in service. Tech-Star (UK-based, shipped worldwide) stocks Cisco components to support ongoing network maintenance.