Networking Hardware

This section describes the networking hardware used to connect components of the Enterprise RA.

NVIDIA BlueField-3 B3240 DPU

The NVIDIA BlueField-3 B3240 DPU with two 400 Gb/s ports (Figure 5) is used in the in-band management and storage fabric. Even though the B3240 DPU supports 400Gb/s per port, the card only supports an aggregate bandwidth across both its ports of approximately 480Gb/s. The Enterprise RA recommends the use of dual ports for the best performance and flexibility. Each compute tray has one B3240 DPUs.

Figure 5 NVIDIA Bluefield-3 B3240 DPU

NVIDIA Mezzanine Network Board with ConnectX-8

Each GB300 compute tray has a Mezzanine Network Board (Figure 6) that is used for Compute (East/West) network. The tray has two such boards, with two ConnectX-8 devices on each board.

Figure 6 NVIDIA Mezzanine Network Board with two ConnectX-8 ASICs

NVIDIA Ethernet Interconnects

The Enterprise RA configurations must be installed with NVIDIA Ethernet interconnects. NVIDIA Ethernet interconnects make extensive use of pluggable optical transceivers and detachable optical fibers for easier installation, inspection, and debugging.

NVIDIA SN5610 Switch

The NVIDIA SN5610 switch (Figure 7) both offer 64 total ports of 800 Gbps to provide connectivity for Compute (East/West), Customer and Storage (North/South), in-band management, and storage in the Enterprise RA.

Figure 7 NVIDIA SN5610 Switch

The NVIDIA SN5610 adds two SFP28 ports and makes switch testing easier since the ports are in pairs.

NVIDIA SN2201 Switch

The NVIDIA SN2201 switch (Figure 8) offers 48 ports to provide connectivity for out-of-band (OOB) management. OOB management provides consolidated management connectivity for all components in the Enterprise RA.

Figure 8 NVIDIA SN2201 Ethernet switch