pNIC
A physical network interface card (pNIC) is a hardware component that provides a computer system with a network connection. Typically installed in a PCIe slot or built into a motherboard, a pNIC connects to a local area network through an Ethernet switch and uses a unique Media Access Control (MAC) address. pNICs support a range of Ethernet speeds, such as 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 25/40/100 Gbps, depending on the model. Modern devices may include hardware offload features to improve performance, such as TCP/IP offload, checksum offload, large receive offload, segmentation offload, and support for VLAN tagging and jumbo frames.
In data centers and enterprise networks, pNICs can be configured for redundancy and throughput through link
Virtualization environments distinguish between pNICs and virtual NICs (vNICs). The pNIC provides the physical path to
Management and deployment: pNICs require appropriate drivers and firmware, updated through the host operating system or