Mellanox ConnectX -4 Lx EN Adapter Card for Open Compute Project (OCP)

ConnectX-4 Lx EN Network Controller with 10/25/40/50Gb/s Ethernet interface delivers high-bandwidth, low latency and industry-leading Ethernet connectivity for Open Compute Project (OCP) server and storage applications in Web 2.0, Enterprise Data Centers and Cloud infrastructure.

With ConnectX-4 Lx EN, server and storage applications will achieve significant throughput and latency improvements resulting in faster access, real-time response and more virtual machines hosted per server. ConnectX-4 Lx EN for Open Compute Project (OCP) specification 2.0 improves network performance by increasing available bandwidth while decreasing the associated transport load on the CPU especially in virtualized server environments.

Moreover, ConnectX-4 Lx EN introduces the new Multi-Host technology, which enables a new innovative rack design that achieves maximum CAPEX and OPEX savings without compromising on network performance.

MELLANOX MULTI-HOST? TECHNOLOGY

Mellanox's ConnectX-4 Multi-Host provides high speed interconnect to up to four separate hosts from a single NIC with no performance degradation on any of them. Furthermore, ConnectX-4 Lx EN offers four fully-independent PCIe buses, lowering total cost of ownership in the data center by reducing CAPEX requirements from four cables, NICs, and switch ports to only one of each, and by reducing OPEX by cutting down on switch port management and overall power usage.

Each host can be active or inactive at any time, independent of the other hosts, and receives bandwidth of its own. Bandwidth is split between the hosts, either evenly (default) or based on configurable differentiated Quality of Service (QoS), depending on the data center's needs. Multi-Host technology features uncompromising independent host management, with full independent NC-SI/MCTP support to each host and to the NIC. IT managers can remotely control the configuration and power state of each host individually, such that management of one host does not affect host traffic performance or the management of the other hosts, guaranteeing host security and isolation. To further lower the total cost of ownership, ConnectX-4 Lx EN supports management of the multiple hosts using a single BMC, with independent NC-SI/MCTP management channels for each of the managed hosts.

Multi-Host also supports a heterogeneous data center architecture; the various hosts connected to the single adapter can be x86, Power, GPU, or Arm, thereby removing any limitations in passing data or communicating between CPUs.