NVIDIA Mellanox MBF2M355A-VESOT BlueField-2 E-Series DPU, 200GbE Single QSFP56, PCIe Gen4 x16 (P/N 900-9D250-0038-ST3): This is a fully programmable Data Processing Unit (SmartNIC + Arm SoC), not a passive network adapter. The card combines a single 200GbE QSFP56 network port with an on-board Arm processor complex, 32GB DDR4, and 64GB eMMC for offloading networking, security and storage workloads from the host CPU. Cryptographic acceleration is disabled on this SKU. This is a refurbished unit.
Engineering Context
BlueField-2 integrates a ConnectX-6 Dx 200GbE NIC engine with an Arm SoC and dedicated accelerators on a single PCIe Gen4 x16 card. The architecture is designed to offload virtualization, software-defined networking, NVMe-over-Fabrics target/initiator, and zero-trust security functions away from host x86 cores. The dedicated 1GbE out-of-band management port allows lights-out access to the Arm cores independent of the host. Secure Boot is enabled in hardware, anchoring trust to the on-card root of trust. The -VESOT suffix specifies the crypto-disabled regional variant.
Deployment & Use Cases
Bare-metal cloud and multi-tenant infrastructure where tenant isolation must be enforced below the hypervisor. NVMe-over-TCP/RoCE storage targets and gateways. Software-defined networking dataplane offload (OVS-DPDK, contrail). Distributed firewalling and micro-segmentation at line-rate 200GbE. AI cluster east-west fabric where DPU-side preprocessing reduces host CPU utilization. Note: the -VESOT crypto-disabled variant is not appropriate for IPsec/TLS hardware-offload deployments.
Technical Specifications
OEM: NVIDIA Mellanox
Part Number: MBF2M355A-VESOT (NVIDIA P/N 900-9D250-0038-ST3)
Series: BlueField-2 E-Series DPU
Network Ports: 1 × QSFP56 (200GbE)
Out-of-Band Management: 1 × 1GbE
Host Interface: PCI Express Gen4 x16
On-Board Memory: 32GB DDR4
On-Board Storage: 64GB eMMC
Cryptographic Acceleration: Disabled (-VESOT variant)
Secure Boot: Enabled
Lifecycle Status: End-of-Life by NVIDIA
Condition: Refurbished — Tested by T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
Compatibility & Hard Constraints
Requires a host server with a free PCIe Gen4 x16 slot for full bandwidth; will down-train in PCIe Gen3 slots and lose effective throughput. Network port is QSFP56 (200GbE) — compatible with NVIDIA Quantum/Spectrum 200GbE optics, AOC, and DAC; works at 100GbE/50GbE/25GbE with appropriate transceivers. Not compatible with InfiniBand-only fabrics in this Ethernet variant unless reconfigured per NVIDIA documentation. Crypto disabled — do NOT specify this SKU where IPsec or TLS hardware offload is a requirement; choose the crypto-enabled variant instead. BMC (1GbE OOB) requires a separate management network drop.
Why Choose T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS validates every BlueField-2 DPU on a live PCIe Gen4 host: PCIe link width and speed verification, 200GbE port-up test, OOB management port verification, and DOC firmware sanity check. Visit www.tes-itsolutions.com. Standard handling time 1–3 business days.