Introduction
This is the User Guide for Ethernet adapter cards based on the ConnectX®-6 Lx integrated circuit device for OCP Spec 3.0. These adapters connectivity provide the highest performing and most flexible interconnect solution for servers supporting OCP 3.0 used in Enterprise Data Centers and High-Performance Computing environments.
Providing up to two ports of 25GbE or a single-port of 50GbE connectivity, and PCIe Gen 3.0/4.0 x8 host connectivity, ConnectX-6 Lx is a member of NVIDIA’s world-class, award-winning, ConnectX family of network adapters. Continuing NVIDIA’s consistent innovation in networking, ConnectX-6 Lx provides agility and efficiency at every scale. ConnectX-6 Lx delivers cutting edge 25GbE performance and security for uncompromising data centers. ConnectX-6 Lx offers IPsec inline encryption/decryption acceleration (in Crypto enabled products) and connection-tracking hardware offload to accelerates L4 firewall performance as part of NVIDIA ASAP².
ConnectX-6 Lx also delivers supply chain protection with hardware Root-of-Trust (RoT) for Secure Boot (in Secure Boot enabled products) as well as Secure Firmware Update using RSA cryptography and cloning protection, via a device-unique key, to guarantee firmware authenticity
ConnectX-6 Lx SmartNICs are available in several form factors including low-profile PCIe and OCP 3.0 cards with SFP28 connectors for 10/25GbE applications, or QSFP28 for 50GbE applications. OCP3.0 cards are available with either a pull tab or an internal lock bracket. For the low-profile PCIe cards hardware user manual, please refer to ConnectX-6 Lx HHHL Cards UM.
The following table provides the ordering part number, port speed, number of ports, and PCI Express speed.
Please note the following OPNs include a thumbscrew (pull tab) bracket. For other retention mechanisms brackets, please contact NVIDIA.
ConnectX-6 Lx 25GbE Adapter Cards for OCP 3.0
OPN |
MCX631432AN-ADAB |
MCX631432AE-ADAB |
MCX631432AC-ADAB |
MCX631432AS-ADAB |
Network Connector Type |
Dual-port SFP28 |
Dual-port SFP28 |
Dual-port SFP28 |
Dual-port SFP28 |
Ethernet Data Rate |
10/25 Gb/s |
|||
PCI Express Connectors |
PCIe Gen 4.0 x8 SERDES @ 16.0GT/s |
|||
Dimensions |
Small Form Factor (SFF) OCP 3.0 4.52 in. x 2.99 in (115.00mm x 76.00mm) |
|||
Retention Mechanism |
Thumbscrew (Pull Tab) Bracket |
|||
RoHS |
RoHS Compliant |
RoHS Compliant |
RoHS Compliant |
RoHS Compliant |
IC Part Number |
MT28942A0-YCCF-AE |
MT28942A0-YCCF-AE |
MT28942A0-YCCF-AE |
MT28942A0-YCCF-AE |
Host Management |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
Crypto |
- |
✓ |
✓ |
- |
Secure Boot |
- |
- |
✓ |
✓ |
Device ID |
4127 for Physical Function (PF) 4128 for Virtual Function (VF) |
ConnectX-6 Lx 50GbE Adapter Cards for OCP 3.0
OPN |
MCX631435AN-GDAB |
MCX631435AE-GDAB |
MCX631435AC-GDAB |
Network Connector Type |
Single-port QSFP28 |
Single-port QSFP28 |
Single-port QSFP28 |
Ethernet Data Rate |
10/25/50 Gb/s |
||
PCI Express Connectors |
PCIe Gen 4.0 x8 SERDES @ 16.0GT/s |
||
Dimensions |
Small Form Factor (SFF) OCP 3.0 4.52 in. x 2.99 in (115.00mm x 76.00mm) |
||
Retention Mechanism |
Thumbscrew (Pull Tab) Bracket |
||
RoHS |
RoHS Compliant |
RoHS Compliant |
RoHS Compliant |
IC Part Number |
MT28942A0-YCCF-AE |
MT28942A0-YCCF-AE |
MT28942A0-YCCF-AE |
Host Management |
√ |
√ |
√ |
Crypto |
- |
√ |
√ |
Secure Boot |
- |
- |
√ |
Device ID |
4127 for Physical Function (PF) 4128 for Virtual Function (VF) |
For more detailed information see Specifications.
This section describes hardware features and capabilities. Please refer to the relevant driver and/or firmware release notes for feature availability.
Feature |
Description |
PCI Express (PCIe) |
Uses PCIe Gen 4.0 (16GT/s) through x8 edge connector. |
Up to 200 Gigabit Ethernet |
NVIDIA adapters comply with the following IEEE 802.3 standards: • 200GbE / 100GbE / 50GbE / 25GbE / 10GbE / 1GbE • IEEE 802.3bj, 802.3bm 100 Gigabit Ethernet • IEEE 802.3by, Ethernet Consortium25, 50 Gigabit Ethernet, supporting all FEC modes • IEEE 802.3ba 40 Gigabit Ethernet • IEEE 802.3by 25 Gigabit Ethernet • IEEE 802.3ae 10 Gigabit Ethernet • IEEE 802.3ap based auto-negotiation and KR startup • Proprietary Ethernet protocols (20/40GBASE-R2, 50GBASE-R4) • IEEE 802.3ad, 802.1AX Link Aggregation • IEEE 802.1Q, 802.1P VLAN tags and priority • IEEE 802.1Qau (QCN) • Congestion Notification • IEEE 802.1Qaz (ETS) • IEEE 802.1Qbb (PFC) • IEEE 802.1Qbg • IEEE 1588v2 • Jumbo frame support (9.6KB) |
Memory Components |
|
Overlay Networks |
In order to better scale their networks, data center operators often create overlay networks that carry traffic from individual virtual machines over logical tunnels in encapsulated formats such as NVGRE and VXLAN. While this solves network scalability issues, it hides the TCP packet from the hardware offloading engines, placing higher loads on the host CPU. ConnectX®-6 Lx effectively addresses this by providing advanced NVGRE and VXLAN hardware offloading engines that encapsulate and de-capsulate the overlay protocol. |
RDMA and RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) |
ConnectX®-6 Lx, utilizing RDMA (Remote Data Memory Access) and RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) technology, delivers low-latency and high-performance over Band and Ethernet networks. Leveraging data center bridging (DCB) capabilities, as well as ConnectX®-6 Lx, advanced congestion control hardware mechanisms, RoCE provides efficient low-latency RDMA services over Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks. |
NVIDIA PeerDirect® |
PeerDirect® communication provides high-efficiency RDMA access by eliminating unnecessary internal data copies between components on the PCIe bus (for example, from GPU to CPU), and therefore significantly reduces application run time. ConnectX®-6 Lx advanced acceleration technology enables higher cluster efficiency and scalability to tens of thousands of nodes. |
CPU Offload |
Adapter functionality enables reduced CPU overhead leaving more CPU resources available for computation tasks. Open vSwitch (OVS) offload using ASAP2(TM) • Flexible match-action flow tables • Tunneling encapsulation/decapsulation |
Quality of Service (QoS) |
Support for port-based Quality of Service enabling various application requirements for latency and SLA. |
Hardware-based I/O Virtualization |
ConnectX®-6 Lx provides dedicated adapter resources and guaranteed isolation and protection for virtual machines within the server. |
Storage Acceleration |
A consolidated compute and storage network achieves significant cost-performance advantages over multi-fabric networks. Standard block and file access protocols can leverage RDMA for high-performance storage access. • NVMe over Fabric offloads for the target machine |
SR-IOV |
ConnectX®-6 Lx SR-IOV technology provides dedicated adapter resources and guaranteed isolation and protection for virtual machines (VM) within the server. |
NC-SI |
The adapter supports a Network Controller Sideband Interface (NC-SI), MCTP over SMBus and MCTP over PCIe - Baseboard Management Controller interface. |
High-Performance Accelerations |
• Tag Matching and Rendezvous Offloads • Adaptive Routing on Reliable Transport • Burst Buffer Offloads for Background Checkpointing |
Host Management |
NVIDIA host management sideband implementations enable remote monitor and control capabilities using RBT, MCTP over SMBus, and MCTP over PCIe – Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) interface, supporting both NC-SI and PLDM management protocols using these interfaces. NVIDIA OCP 3.0 adapters support these protocols to offer numerous Host Management features such as PLDM for Firmware Update, network boot in UEFI driver, UEFI secure boot, and more. |
Secure Boot |
Hardware Root-of-Trust (RoT) Secure Boot and secure firmware update using RSA cryptography, and cloning-protection, via a device-unique secret key. |
Crypto |
Crypto – IPsec and TLS data-in-motion inline encryption and decryption offload and AES-XTS block-level data-at-rest encryption and decryption offload. |
Wake-on-LAN (WoL) |
The adapter supported Wake-on-LAN (WoL), a computer networking standard that allows an adapter to be turned on or awakened by a network message. In STBY mode, only port0 is available. |
Reset-on-LAN (RoL) |
Supported |
Connection tracking |
ConnectX-6 Lx ASAP² connection-tracking hardware offload accelerates L4 firewall performance. |
IPSec Offload (in selected OPNs) |
ConnectX-6 Lx adapters offer a range of advanced built-in capabilities that bring infrastructure security down to every endpoint with unprecedented performance and scalability. ConnectX-6 Lx offers IPsec inline encryption/decryption acceleration to offload the CPU and run the entire data path encryption or decryption in the NIC hardware while maintaining the line rate. |
Secure Boot (Hardware Root Of Trust) |
ConnectX-6 Lx delivers supply chain protection with hardware Root-of-Trust (RoT) for Secure Boot as well as Secure Firmware Update using RSA cryptography and cloning protection, via a device-unique key, to guarantee firmware authenticity |
RHEL/CentOS
Windows
FreeBSD
VMware
OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED)
OpenFabrics Windows Distribution (WinOF-2)
Interoperable with 1/10/25/50 Gb/s Ethernet switches
Passive copper cable with ESD protection
Powered connectors for optical and active cable support