NBU 5250 Mellanox ConnectX-4 EN MCX4121A-ACAT

[quebek]

Hello
I am remotely to all NBU appliances. We did purchase the new 5250's but I am having no idea what is this card connection? Is it optical or copper? From the "Veritas™ 5250 Appliance Product Description Guide"  I read this:

"Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx EN MCX4121A-ACAT Ethernet card
The Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx EN Ethernet card supports both optical (short wave and long wave optics) and copper (twinax) traffic at 10/25 Gbps Ethernet line rate speeds."

But there is not written how it is coming with this appliance ? Can any one shed a light?

[davidmoline · Accepted solution]

Hi @quebek 

The ethernet card support the SFP+ pluggable modules. The appliance will come with a 10G optical SFP+ module for use. Twinax is simply a way of using a short run of copper cable from a switch to the appliance by-passing the plug-in module (the twinax cable plugs directly into the SFP+ port). Twinax should not be confused with any form of twisted pair copper cable (e.g. cat-6). 

If you need 25G networking which the card supports (and you have the infrastructure to support it as well), you will need to purchase a SFP+ module that supports this speed. 

Cheers
David

[quebek]

Thank you David... IMHO such information should be also in mentioned admin guide ;)