


The Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card (VIC) 1225 is a high-performance dual-port PCI Express card, specifically engineered for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers. It utilizes Enhanced Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP+) technology and supports both 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). One of the standout features of the VIC 1225 is its ability to present up to 256 PCIe standards-compliant interfaces to the host, which can be dynamically configured as either Network Interface Cards (NICs) or Host Bus Adapters (HBAs). This flexibility, along with Cisco’s Data Center VM-FEX technology, enables streamlined virtual machine connectivity and simplifies server virtualization deployment. Its design also ensures investment protection with support for future feature releases and seamless integration with existing infrastructures
The VIC 1225 is most effective when deployed within the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), a platform designed to integrate compute, networking, storage access, and virtualization resources. It is ideal for data centers aiming to reduce total cost of ownership and enhance agility. With its integration into the Cisco UCS fabric, the VIC 1225 plays a vital role in enabling low-latency, lossless networking across an enterprise’s IT infrastructure. It’s especially beneficial in environments requiring high-throughput, reliable network interfaces—such as virtualized server deployments, enterprise applications, and storage-intensive operations. This makes it a foundational component for building scalable and manageable virtualized environments within Cisco’s unified architecture
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| Item | Specifications |
|---|---|
| Standards |
|
| Components | Cisco UCS custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) |
| Ports | 2 x 10-Gbps FCoE SFP+ ports |
| Connectivity | PCIe 2.0 x16 form factor |
| Performance | 10-Gbps line rate per port |
| Management | Cisco UCS Manager Release 2.0 (2) and higher |
| Number of interfaces | 256 virtual interfaces (approximately 8 are reserved for internal use; other factors such as the OS and hypervisor may limit this number further) |
| Supported media |
|
| Physical dimensions |
|
| Typical power | 12 watts (W) |
| Feature | Benefit |
|---|---|
| x16 PCIe generation-2 interfaces | Delivers greater throughput |
| 2 x 10-Gbps unified I/O |
|
| Up to 256 dynamic virtual adapters and interfaces |
|
| Cisco SingleConnect technology | A single unified network - the same network brings LAN, SAN, and management connectivity to each server |
| Cisco Data Center VM-FEX technology |
|
| Centralized management | Enables the card to be centrally managed and configured by Cisco UCS Manager and Cisco Intersight |
| Network architecture | Provides a redundant path to the fabric interconnect using hardware-based fabric failover |
| More than 600,000 I/O operations per second (IOPS) | Provides high I/O performance for demanding applications |
| Support for lossless Ethernet | Uses Priority Flow Control (PFC) to enable FCoE as part of the Cisco unified fabric |
| Broad OS and hypervisor support | Supports customer requirements for Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux, VMware vSphere, and Citrix XenServer |



