NVIDIA Mellanox MBF2H516A-EENOT BlueField-2 P-Series SmartNIC: This is a dual-port programmable Data Processing Unit (DPU) and SmartNIC delivering 100Gb/s VPI connectivity over two QSFP56 cages. It is a PCIe 4.0 x16 host adapter built around the BlueField-2 SoC with onboard ARM cores and 16GB of DDR4 ECC memory. This is NOT a passive NIC; the BlueField-2 SoC executes its own Linux distribution and offloads networking, storage, and security functions from the host. NVIDIA P/N: 900-9D219-0056-SQ0. This is a brand new, factory-sealed unit.
Engineering Context
The MBF2H516A-EENOT carries a BlueField-2 SoC with 8 ARM A72 cores, 16GB DDR4 ECC memory at 3200 MT/s, and a PCIe 4.0 x16 host edge connector capable of 16 GT/s per lane. The dual QSFP56 cages support Ethernet rates from 1GbE up to 100GbE and InfiniBand rates including HDR100 and EDR. The SmartNIC suffix EENOT denotes the configuration: crypto disabled, secure boot disabled, no on-board NVMe SSD. The BlueField-2 hardware accelerates RoCEv2, NVMe-oF, regex, GENEVE/VXLAN tunneling, and connection tracking.
Deployment & Use Cases
AI training fabrics where the DPU offloads NVMe-oF storage traffic from GPU servers. Cloud and bare-metal hosting platforms running OVS, virtio-net, or vDPA acceleration on the DPU. Software-defined storage targets exposing NVMe namespaces over RoCEv2. Network security middleboxes terminating IPsec or running connection tracking at line rate. HPC clusters requiring InfiniBand HDR100 connectivity with programmable data-path offload.
Technical Specifications
OEM: NVIDIA Mellanox
Part Number: MBF2H516A-EENOT
NVIDIA P/N: 900-9D219-0056-SQ0
Series: BlueField-2 P-Series SmartNIC / DPU
SoC Cores: 8 ARM A72 (64-bit)
Onboard Memory: 16GB DDR4 ECC at 3200 MT/s
Host Interface: PCIe 4.0 x16 (16 GT/s per lane)
Network Ports: 2x QSFP56
Ethernet Rates: 1/10/25/40/50/100GbE
InfiniBand Rates: SDR / FDR / EDR / HDR100
Crypto / Secure Boot: Disabled (per EENOT SKU)
Onboard NVMe: None
Form Factor: PCIe Half-Height Half-Length (HHHL)
Condition: New — Factory sealed, sourced through T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
Compatibility & Hard Constraints
Requires a host motherboard with a free PCIe 4.0 x16 slot for full bandwidth (PCIe 3.0 x16 will down-train and cap throughput). Driver stack: NVIDIA DOCA / MLNX_OFED for Linux (Ubuntu, RHEL/CentOS). For QSFP56 connectivity use 200G-class DACs/AOCs/transceivers configured at 100Gb/s. Not a standard ConnectX adapter — provisioning the DPU requires UEFI/RShim configuration of the embedded ARM subsystem. The EENOT variant has crypto and secure boot disabled and does NOT include onboard NVMe storage; selecting EENOT for IPsec hardware acceleration is incorrect.
Why Choose T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS ships factory-sealed BlueField-2 SmartNICs with full provisioning guidance for DOCA, OFED, and BMC/RShim setup. Global shipping with 1–3 day handling time and expert support for DPU deployment.