IBM Mellanox 2-Port 10G SFP+ RoCE SR Network Adapter

Product Overview

The IBM 00E1856 (Mellanox Model: MNPH29D-XSR) is a high-performance, dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) PCI Express 2.0 x8 network interface card (NIC). It features RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) technology, which delivers ultra-low latency and high-throughput performance by allowing direct memory access between servers without CPU intervention. Specifically optimized for IBM Power Systems enterprise environments, this adapter is designed to handle demanding data center workloads, high-frequency trading, and cloud virtualization.

Technical Specifications

General Specifications

• Brand: IBM / Mellanox

• Part Number (P/N): 00E1856

• Alternative Part Numbers: 00E1599, 00E1600 (Varying bracket configurations)

• IBM Feature Code (FC): EC29 (Low-Profile), EC30 (Full-Height)

• Mellanox Base Model: MNPH29D-XSR / ConnectX-2 / ConnectX-3 Series architecture

Hardware Architecture & Interface

• Form Factor: Low-Profile (LP) Card with Low-Profile Bracket (Full-height variants exist)

• Host Bus Interface: PCI Express 2.0 x8 (Backward compatible with PCIe x16 slots)

• Data Transfer Rate: 10 Gbps per port (Line rate)

• Total Bandwidth: 20 Gbps (Dual-port aggregate bidirectional)

Connectivity & Optics

• Ports: 2 x 10GbE SFP+ (Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus) Ports

• Media Type: SR (Short Range) Multi-mode Fiber

• Transceivers Included: Yes, bundled with 2 x 10G Mini-GBIC / SFP+ Optical Transceiver Modules

Advanced Networking Features

• RoCE v1 / v2 Support: Supports RDMA over Converged Ethernet, providing hardware offloads for low-latency data transport.

• Stateless Offloads:

  • TCP/UDP/IP checksum offloads

  • Large Send Offload (LSO) / Giant Send Offload (GSO)

  • Receive Side Scaling (RSS)

• Virtualization Optimization: Supports single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV), boosting virtual machine network efficiency.

• Traffic Management: Priority-Based Flow Control (PFC) and Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS) for lossless Ethernet networking.

Compatibility

Server System Support

• Optimized for enterprise IBM Power Systems (Power7 / Power7+ / Power8 architectures, including models like P740, S822, etc.).

• Standard x86-based enterprise server platforms equipped with matching PCIe slots and OS drivers.

Operating System Support

• IBM AIX

• IBM i

• Linux (Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server)

• Microsoft Windows Server environments

• VMware ESXi virtualization platforms