Introduction

The NVIDIA® Spectrum™-3 SN4280-X Smart Switch with four BlueField DPUs is purpose-built for intelligent management of data centers. Allowing maximum flexibility, the SN4280-X provides port speeds spanning from 50G to 400G. The SN4280-X is a programmable switch, delivering high performance and low latency, making it ideal for building wire-speed, cloud-scale Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks. With support for advanced software-defined networking features, it’s an optimal choice for cloud infrastructure, at high workloads.

The NVIDIA® BlueField®-3 data processing unit (DPU) is the third-generation data-center-infrastructure-on-a-chip that enables software-defined, hardware-accelerated IT infrastructures from cloud to core data center to edge. BlueField-3 DPU offloads, accelerates, and isolates software-defined networking, storage, security, and management functions in ways that profoundly improve data center performance, efficiency, and security.

Packet buffer architecture has a major impact on overall switch performance. The Spectrum-3 packet buffer is monolithic and fully shared across all ports, supporting cut-through, line-rate traffic, without compromising scale or features. With its fast packet buffer, Spectrum-3 provides a high-performance, fair, and bottleneck-free data path for mission-critical applications.

With the current shift from virtual-machine-based architectures to container-based architectures, the high-scale forwarding tables required by modern data centers and mega clouds have increased by up to an order of magnitude or more. To meet these needs for scalability and flexibility, the SN4280-X uses intelligent algorithms and efficient network resource sharing at scale.

For a full list of all available ordering options, see Ordering Information.

The table below describes maximum throughput and interface speed per system model.

*The system can support different interfaces and speed rates using QSFP/QSDP-DD to SFP adapters or hybrid cables. For further information, see Splitter (Breakout) Cables and Adapters.

The table below lists the various management interfaces, PSUs, and fans per system model.

For a full feature list, please refer to the system’s product brief. Go to https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/networking/. In the main menu, click on Products > Ethernet Switch Systems, and select the desired product family.

For a list of certifications (such as EMC, safety, and others), contact your NVIDIA representative.