I got all excited when I first stumbled across the RB44Ge, thinking it was a full mikrotik router on a PCIe card.

Have you ever considered making such a product? I can see it being useful for a number of applications to having an embedded hardware firewall in a desktop or server.

In the desktop, there's the paranoid user that just doesn't trust software firewalls. For this application a 2-port routerboard in a PCIe card that looks just like a normal single port Ethernet adapter from the outside with an internal Ethernet adapter that's presented to the operating system. Optionally, there could be a slot to add-on a WiFi radio that could connect to sma connectors on an optional secondary PCI slot cover.

Also useful in the desktop area is a 4-port router (even if none of those are present on the PCI bus) for applications when you take your computer somewhere that only provides a single network drop and you've got additional devices to connect (This is a common problem for computer gamers that take their machines to gaming events)

In the server market, I can see an even bigger need for such hardware. Take for example a server co-located in a data-center or server room (yes, people still do that) I've got Lights-out-management, an IP-KVM and system network on the server and only a single un-firewalled network drop from the provider. I can envision being able to VPN into an embedded mikrotik router that then has connectivity to a separate management network for things you don't want hanging out on the public network but still need access to if your operating system hangs.

It might also be real handy to have a serial port and/or USB headers on the embedded router card. These could either be routed to the back ports of the computer using another PCI slot cover, or directly connected to the host server through it's header ports. This would not only improve its manageability but would also provide a way to SSH into the mikrotik and use it as a serial console to the host server.

My final thought on the subject is about power. The only disadvantage to this solution that I can think is that if the host server was powered down, so would the router. The simplest solution is to use PoE since that seems to be a standard for Mikrotik. Maybe with an internal jumper to select the power source coming from PoE or the PCIe bus. Another thought that might be a bit more tricky is to have headers for a battery pack that is mounted to the inside of the host computer. The battery would at least allow the mikrotik to systematically shut down after a power failure and isn't that much different than the battery backup units already used on enterprise class RAID cards. The bus spec has a 3.3v standby power but it may be unfeasible to use this for power because everything Mikrotik seems to like more power than this is intended to supply.

So you just want to put a routerboard in the server case together with the server... Actually the ros is not the best firewall ever created, it's power is mainly in routing capabilities together with other functions easily manageable packed into a box with some cheap hardware. Even your idea is for sure very interesting I don't see possibility that mikrotik would go that way. It would be nice to see how it could be used even though.

Looks like Gigabyte thought of this about a decade ago. Apparently it didn't go over well for them 'cause they obviously didn't catch on. Still would like to see something similar with the power of a Mikrotik. You are right that ros isn't the mightiest firewall in the world but I still think there's a use case for it and I can't believe the one gigabyte made had near the feature set. I also question that they were targeting the right market with its included wireless, seems more likely in cases where only wired network is used. In the end, you're likely right that the niche market is probably too small to justify the cost of building the product. I still think it's a great idea.

http://www.gigabyte.com/press-center/ne ... px?nid=468

So what? Half of mikrotik routers have some kind of pci interfaces.

Atheros-acquired killer-nic things are - built around similar ideas :=)
but initially they had quite neat feature seet and (almost)complete /embedded/linux distribution within it :=)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_NIC
generally - i would like similar product with Mikrotik aswell !! consider that - 44Ge with more powerful SoC/process(and even mPCI slot for wi-fi adapter, maybe?)running over full-power RouterOS - could be funny product to use

+1, would be an interesting adventure having a 'tik disguised as a NIC card.

I thought about this before too. But ended up with a better solution..

VMWare ESXi.

On each server that I have co-located, I use ESXi. I have one VM running RouterOS connected to the physical NIC, then each VM is connected to a virtual LAN.If I have multiple physical servers, they are connected to a second physical NIC bridged on the virtual LAN. It works out very nicely.

compared to EMC products, MT had Cloud Core Router.
while Whole purpose of suggested by topicstarter idea - is quite opposite, basically.
does you ESXi - run as fully-autonomous(muti-port ethernet and wifi) device without need for extra-hardware(except for power supply)? no need for CPU, storage, extra-networking, memory, operating system/5-i-1.
just plug it, configure via WebUI or WinBox and here you go !! ready to fly, sir ! :=)