Cheaper than $199 (probably around $175 street price is my guess), 0U's, no licensing or reoccurring fees, and consumes zero host resources? Even as just a physical firewall or hardware vpn endpoint in front of a colo'ed server, using one SFP28 in full passthrough... this thing sounds incredible.

I think people that feel this device is pointless just have not been in a situation where this device is exactly what they needed. It is a niche device, admittedly.

However, you have my attention - what device are you referring to that does this better and cheaper?

This is all better done with ACLs or direct programming on a broadcom chipset in a traditional scale top of rack switch or similar, or better done in the actual host CPU land because its something complicated that can't be done with simple ACL / TCAM programming.

Seriously, there isn't a good problem here that this solution solves that isn't better done elsewhere.

Top of rack requires space, which must be paid for monthly in a colo'ed environment, or reduces usable space (ie. revenue generating space) for hosting/cloud providers.

Done in actual host CPU consumes resources.

Direct programming on a chipset is a lot more complicated than running an off the shelf router.

Yes this is a niche product - but your proposed alternatives are silly in most cases where just slapping a zero U device into an unused PCIe port is far less complicated, less expensive, and easier to maintain.

This thing costs less than $200, a one time cost. Just reading the Broadcom documentation alone will cost your organization more than that...

So you don't plug servers into an existing switch? Do they just connect via magic or something?