Cisco 74-11070-01 10GBPS PCI-E 2 Ports Converged Adapter.

Overview of Cisco 74-11070-01 Dual-Port Converged Adapter

The Cisco 74-11070-01 is a high-performance network adapter engineered for enterprise-grade connectivity. Featuring dual 10 Gbps ports and PCI Express compatibility, it delivers reliable throughput and advanced virtualization support for modern data centers and server environments.

General Information

• Manufacturer: Cisco
• Part Number: 74-11070-01
• Category: Network Adapter

Technical Specifications

Hardware & Interfaces

• Controller: Intel Ethernet Controller X540-T2
• Port Count: 2 ports
• Interface Type: RJ-45 (Copper)
• Host Interface: PCI Express 2.0 x8 (compatible with x8 and x16 slots)
• Form Factor: Plug-in card with low-profile and full-height bracket options

Networking Performance

• Data Rate: 10 Gbps per port
• Cabling: Category 6 (up to 55m) or Category 6A (up to 100m) twisted-pair copper
• Protocols: Standard Ethernet protocols including TCP/IP and UDP
• Virtualization: Hardware acceleration with VMDq and SR-IOV support

Physical & Environmental

System Compatibility

• Optimized For: Cisco UCS C220 M3 and other UCS C-Series rack servers

Power Efficiency

• Consumption: Energy-efficient design with lower power usage compared to previous generation 10GBase-T adapters

Cisco 74-11070-01 2 Ports Converged Adapter

High Performance Converged Network Adapter Architecture

The Cisco 74-11070-01 2 Ports Converged Adapter 10 Gbps PCI-E is engineered as a high-throughput network interface solution designed for enterprise-grade servers, data center infrastructures, virtualization platforms, and cloud computing environments. Built to support advanced converged networking requirements, this adapter integrates high-speed Ethernet connectivity with optimized packet processing capabilities to reduce latency and enhance overall system efficiency. It is widely used in mission-critical deployments where consistent throughput, minimal packet loss, and scalable bandwidth utilization are essential for workload stability and performance consistency.

This converged adapter leverages PCI Express architecture to deliver stable and predictable bandwidth allocation between server and network infrastructure. The dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet capability ensures redundancy, load balancing, and increased data transmission capacity, making it suitable for environments where high-volume data processing and real-time communication are required.

Enterprise-Class 10 Gbps Dual Port Connectivity

Dual-Port Configuration Advantages

The dual-port configuration of the Cisco 74-11070-01 adapter provides significant operational flexibility in modern networking environments. Each port supports 10 Gbps throughput, enabling simultaneous data streams that enhance server communication efficiency. This architecture is particularly beneficial in clustered server environments, storage networks, virtualization farms, and cloud-based workloads where uninterrupted connectivity is crucial.

The two-port structure also ensures redundancy in case of network failure, allowing automatic failover and continuous data flow. This increases system resilience and minimizes downtime in enterprise deployments. In high-availability environments, such redundancy is critical for maintaining service-level agreements and ensuring uninterrupted application performance.

10 Gigabit Ethernet Performance Optimization

With support for 10 Gigabit Ethernet speeds, the adapter is optimized for high-volume data transfers, including large database synchronization, virtualization migration, and distributed computing workloads. The architecture minimizes packet latency and enhances throughput consistency, ensuring that network-intensive applications operate smoothly even under heavy load conditions.

The adapter also supports advanced offloading capabilities that reduce CPU utilization by handling network processing tasks directly on the hardware. This allows server resources to be allocated more efficiently toward application-level processing rather than network overhead.

PCI Express Interface and System Integration

PCI-E Bandwidth Efficiency and Compatibility

The Cisco 74-11070-01 Converged Adapter utilizes PCI Express (PCI-E) interface technology to connect seamlessly with modern server motherboards. This ensures high-bandwidth communication between the network adapter and system architecture, allowing data to flow efficiently without bottlenecks. The PCI-E interface provides scalable lane configurations that optimize throughput for enterprise applications requiring sustained high-speed connectivity.

The adapter is designed for compatibility with a wide range of server platforms, making it suitable for deployment in heterogeneous IT environments. Its standardized PCI-E design ensures ease of installation, configuration, and integration into existing infrastructure without requiring extensive hardware modifications.

Low Latency Data Transmission Capabilities

Latency reduction is a core design focus of this converged adapter. By utilizing optimized hardware processing and efficient PCI-E data pathways, the adapter significantly reduces transmission delays between network and system memory. This is particularly beneficial for applications such as financial trading systems, real-time analytics platforms, and high-performance computing clusters.

The architecture ensures that data packets are processed rapidly and efficiently, minimizing jitter and improving application responsiveness across distributed environments.

Storage Network Integration and Data Synchronization

High-Speed Storage Connectivity

The adapter plays a critical role in storage area network (SAN) and network-attached storage (NAS) environments. Its high-speed data transmission capabilities enable rapid synchronization between storage nodes, improving data availability and reducing backup windows.

Organizations that manage large-scale databases or distributed storage systems benefit significantly from the adapter’s ability to handle continuous data replication and high-volume read/write operations.

Hardware Design

Advanced Thermal and Power Efficiency Design

The Cisco 74-11070-01 adapter is designed with optimized thermal management features that ensure stable operation under continuous heavy workloads. Efficient power utilization reduces heat generation and enhances system longevity, making it suitable for dense data center deployments where thermal efficiency is a key consideration.

The hardware design ensures stable performance even in high-temperature environments, maintaining consistent throughput without performance degradation.

Durability and Enterprise Reliability Standards

Built to meet enterprise-grade reliability standards, the adapter is tested for long-term operational stability in demanding network environments. Its robust construction ensures resistance to performance fluctuations, hardware failures, and workload spikes.

This reliability makes it suitable for deployment in mission-critical infrastructure where downtime is not acceptable and continuous availability is required.

Network Optimization

Intelligent Packet Processing Capabilities

The adapter incorporates intelligent packet processing mechanisms that optimize data flow across network interfaces. By reducing CPU dependency, it allows servers to handle more simultaneous connections without compromising performance.

This is especially beneficial in environments with heavy multitasking requirements, where multiple applications rely on consistent network access simultaneously.

Load Balancing and Traffic Distribution

The dual-port architecture supports advanced load balancing techniques that distribute network traffic evenly across available channels. This prevents congestion and ensures efficient utilization of available bandwidth resources.

Load balancing capabilities also improve fault tolerance by redirecting traffic in the event of network disruption or hardware failure.

Optimized Throughput for Enterprise Networks

The adapter ensures optimized throughput by dynamically adjusting network resource allocation based on traffic demands. This results in smoother data transmission, improved application responsiveness, and enhanced user experience across enterprise systems.

Virtualization Offload and CPU Efficiency

Hardware-Based Offloading Mechanisms

One of the key advantages of the Cisco 74-11070-01 adapter is its ability to offload networking tasks from the server CPU to dedicated hardware components. This includes tasks such as checksum calculations, packet segmentation, and traffic management.

By reducing CPU workload, the adapter improves overall system efficiency and allows computing resources to be redirected toward application processing and virtualization workloads.

Enhanced Multi-Core Server Performance

In multi-core server environments, CPU efficiency is critical for maintaining high performance across virtual machines and applications. The adapter’s offloading capabilities ensure that processor cores are not overwhelmed by network processing tasks, improving scalability and system responsiveness.

High-Density Data Center Implementation

The adapter is ideal for high-density data centers where multiple servers operate in parallel to handle large-scale workloads. Its compact PCI-E design allows easy integration into blade servers and rack-mounted systems.

In such environments, it supports continuous data flow between compute nodes, storage arrays, and external networks, ensuring seamless communication across infrastructure layers.

Financial and Analytical Systems

Financial institutions and analytics platforms benefit from the adapter’s low latency and high throughput capabilities. Real-time transaction processing, algorithmic trading, and predictive analytics rely on fast and reliable network communication.

The adapter ensures that data packets are transmitted with minimal delay, supporting time-sensitive applications where milliseconds can impact outcomes.

Telecommunications and Service Provider Networks

Telecommunication providers use high-speed converged adapters like the Cisco 74-11070-01 to manage large-scale subscriber traffic and backend service operations. The dual-port redundancy ensures uninterrupted service delivery across network nodes.

It is also effective in handling voice, video, and data convergence, supporting unified communications infrastructure in modern telecom environments.