P25960-B21 Mellanox MCX623106AS-CDAT Ethernet 100Gb 2-port QSFP56 Adapter for HPE

The P25960-B21 Mellanox MCX623106AS-CDAT Ethernet 100Gb 2-port QSFP56 Adapter for HPE represents the pinnacle of ultra-high-speed networking infrastructure, engineered to meet the demanding throughput requirements of modern enterprise data centers, artificial intelligence (AI) inference workloads, and hyper-scale cloud environments.

Featuring dual physical ports with Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable 56 (QSFP56) interfaces, this network interface card delivers a combined bandwidth of up to 200 Gbps. It provides system architects with the extreme bandwidth and ultra-low latency frameworks necessary to eliminate severe input/output (I/O) bottlenecks within massive distributed storage networks and high-performance computing (HPC) nodes.

Built on the advanced NVIDIA ConnectX-6 Dx SmartNIC controller architecture, this network card optimizes compute node utilization through hardware-assisted offload engines. By processing network calculations, encryption tasks, and transport protocols directly on the adapter hardware, it significantly reduces host CPU overhead, freeing up system processing cycles for high-density virtualization, real-time analytics, and high-frequency transactional workloads.

This network interface card utilizes a high-bandwidth PCI Express (PCIe) bus interface designed to match the throughput of the 100GbE physical ports, ensuring synchronous, full-line-rate communication without internal bus saturation.

The dual-port QSFP56 architecture provides exceptional deployment flexibility, supporting high-speed optical transceivers or cost-effective Direct Attach Copper (DAC) cabling for streamlined top-of-rack or end-of-row switch aggregation. This dual-port layout is ideal for enforcing network zoning, implementing secure link aggregation (NIC teaming) for bandwidth scaling, and deploying automated multi-path failover channels to maintain enterprise runtime resilience.

The P25960-B21 is optimized for modern software-defined data centers (SDDCs) and multi-tenant cloud architectures. It features advanced stateless offloads and hardware acceleration for network virtualization overlay protocols, accelerating packet steering while ensuring workload isolation. Hardened security protocols—including hardware-based crypto offloads for IPsec and TLS—are integrated within the card's firmware layers, providing protection against unauthorized exploitation and supplying real-time data telemetry to infrastructure monitoring systems.

RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE v2) enables direct memory-to-memory communication between servers without involving the host operating system or taxing CPU resources. This results in ultra-low latency data transfers and significantly reduced processing latency, making it essential for high-performance computing, distributed NVMe-oF storage clustering, and fast live migrations of database environments.

The QSFP56 standard utilizes 50G PAM4 technology, transmitting double the data per clock cycle compared to the NRZ signaling used in QSFP28 ports. This advancement enables stable 100Gb speeds using fewer lane resources, resulting in lower power consumption, superior signal integrity, and enhanced thermal profiles in high-density server racks.

Each adapter card is protected within a specialized anti-static multi-layer ESD envelope with dense custom cushioning blocks. Orders are shipped through premier international priority logistics channels with comprehensive global tracking, typically arriving within 3 to 5 business days.

No, this hardware operates natively without recurring software licensing fees. It is pre-integrated into standard HPE ProLiant firmware layers and supports standard driver communication paths across major enterprise operating platforms, including VMware vSphere, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Microsoft Windows Server.