NVIDIA MCS7500 130TB/S 648-PORT EDR IB Chassis Switch

NVIDIA MCS7500 648-Port 130TB/S EDR InfiniBand Chassis Switch

Overview

The NVIDIA MCS7500 is a 648-port Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) InfiniBand chassis switch engineered for large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) and datacenter interconnect deployments. At 130TB/s aggregate throughput, this system consolidates massive fabric infrastructure into a single modular chassis, reducing cabling complexity and operational overhead compared to distributed switch topologies. Built for environments where bandwidth efficiency and deterministic latency matter — scientific computing, financial modeling, AI training clusters, and large-scale surveillance analytics infrastructure.

Key Features

• 648 EDR InfiniBand Ports: A single chassis houses 648 active ports, each capable of 100 Gbps full-duplex throughput. This density allows you to connect hundreds of compute nodes, storage nodes, and analytics appliances without splitting the fabric across multiple physical switches — a critical simplification for facilities-constrained datacenters.
• 130TB/s Aggregate Bandwidth: The full bisection throughput of 130TB/s is preserved across the entire switch fabric, meaning any port-to-port communication maintains line-rate performance without congestion collapse. For surveillance storage arrays serving dozens of concurrent video streams and analytics workloads, this translates to predictable, non-blocking data movement.
• Modular Chassis Architecture: The MCS7500 is built from hot-swappable line cards and fabric modules, allowing you to replace failed components without powering down the entire switch. In 24/7 surveillance and security operations, this design minimizes unplanned downtime.
• EDR Technology Baseline: Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) InfiniBand sets the performance floor at 100 Gbps per port. Unlike Ethernet-based alternatives that require additional switches and oversubscription ratios, InfiniBand EDR delivers deterministic, low-latency interconnect — a real advantage when coordinating multi-petabyte video archives across geographically distributed recording nodes.
• Power and Cooling Efficiency: At 919 lbs and 34" × 39" × 62" footprint, the MCS7500 packages extreme port density with managed power draw. Each port's efficiency means total system power remains reasonable despite the 648-port count — important for operational budgets in large surveillance facilities.
• NVIDIA Ecosystem Integration: The MCS7500 is part of NVIDIA's broader InfiniBand portfolio, including Mellanox software stacks, fabric management tools, and APIs that simplify integration with NVIDIA GPU-accelerated analytics nodes. If you're deploying deep-learning-based video analytics (anomaly detection, person re-identification, license-plate OCR), this switch connects directly to GPU-accelerated analytics appliances without middleware overhead.

Integration and Compatibility

The MCS7500 is a datacenter switching fabric. Compatibility depends on your existing InfiniBand or hybrid Ethernet/IB infrastructure. If your storage arrays, NVRs, and analytics servers support InfiniBand adapters (standard on enterprise-grade equipment), the MCS7500 plugs directly into your topology. For facilities with Ethernet-only equipment, you'll need InfiniBand-to-Ethernet gateways or a hybrid fabric strategy — a design decision that should be made at architecture time, not after hardware arrival.

The modular MCS7500 supports standard fabric management protocols and plays well with NVIDIA's Quantum fabric software, allowing centralized monitoring and configuration of the switch and connected endpoints. This integration is critical if you're managing hundreds of surveillance nodes — manual per-port configuration is not an option at this scale.

What's in the Box

Package contents for the MCS7500 are not detailed in available source documentation. Contact the sales team for itemized contents and any included management accessories.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is the MCS7500 suitable for small-to-medium surveillance deployments?

A: No. The MCS7500 is a hyperscale chassis switch with 648 ports and 130TB/s throughput. It's engineered for large datacenters, GPU clusters, and multi-petabyte-scale storage infrastructure. If you're deploying fewer than 50 cameras or a single NVR, a standard Ethernet switch is the right choice. The MCS7500 is for facilities managing hundreds of cameras, distributed NVRs, and real-time analytics across multiple buildings or geographic regions.

Q: What is the power consumption of the MCS7500?

A: Power specifications are not provided in available documentation. Given the 648-port, 130TB/s architecture and 919 lb weight, plan for multi-kilowatt consumption. Consult NVIDIA's detailed datasheet or contact pre-sales engineering for exact power budgets and cooling requirements before datacenter integration.

Q: Can I mix EDR and older InfiniBand speeds (SDR, DDR, QDR) on the same MCS7500 fabric?

A: EDR is backward compatible at negotiated speed — older adapters will work but drop to their native speed (e.g., an SDR adapter will run at 8 Gbps on an EDR port). This is generally not recommended for production fabrics because speed mismatches introduce latency variance and reduce fabric efficiency. Standardize on EDR across all nodes connected to the MCS7500.

Q: What management and monitoring tools are included with the MCS7500?

A: The MCS7500 is managed via NVIDIA's Quantum fabric software suite, which provides fabric topology discovery, port-level monitoring, congestion detection, and firmware management. SNMP integration is standard. Consult your NVIDIA account team for licensing and tool compatibility with your existing network operations center (NOC) platform.

Q: What is the warranty on the MCS7500?

A: Warranty terms are not specified in available product documentation. Confirm coverage and support options directly with your vendor or NVIDIA's enterprise account team.

Q: Does the MCS7500 support redundant power supplies?

A: Redundant power architecture details are not documented in available sources. For a system of this scale and criticality, assume dual or multiple power supplies are standard. Verify configuration and failover behavior with pre-sales engineering before committing to procurement.

Karl Wilson

The NVIDIA MCS7500 is a hyperscale datacenter switch designed for infrastructure at the scale of large surveillance analytics operations, distributed NVR farms, and multi-petabyte storage clusters. At 130TB/s aggregate throughput across 648 EDR InfiniBand ports, this chassis consolidates the kind of fabric footprint that would otherwise require dozens of smaller switches scattered across a datacenter floor. If you're orchestrating hundreds of cameras feeding real-time video streams into distributed storage and GPU-accelerated analytics nodes, the MCS7500 eliminates the oversubscription and congestion management headaches of traditional Ethernet switching.

Technical Highlights:

• 648 EDR InfiniBand Ports at 100 Gbps each: Each port is a dedicated, full-duplex 100 Gbps connection with deterministic, ultra-low latency. For surveillance systems coordinating terabytes of video data per day across multiple geographic sites, line-rate performance on every port means no bottlenecks at the fabric level — a massive operational simplification compared to Ethernet, where oversubscription and congestion require active management.
• 130TB/s Bisection Bandwidth: Full bisection means any two ports can communicate at line rate simultaneously without performance degradation. In practice, this guarantees that a storage node archiving video from 100 concurrent cameras won't see fabric contention — critical for maintaining consistent, predictable ingest rates across your surveillance infrastructure.
• Hot-Swappable Modular Design: Line cards and fabric modules are field-replaceable without power-down. In a 24/7 surveillance operation, this design is non-negotiable; a failed line card doesn't take your entire fabric offline for hours.

Deployment Considerations:

• The MCS7500 is strictly a high-end, enterprise-class fabric switch. If your deployment is under 100 cameras or a single geographic location, you're overengineered and burning capital unnecessarily — a standard 10GbE or 25GbE switch is the right tool.
• InfiniBand is not Ethernet. Every compute, storage, and analytics node plugged into the MCS7500 must have InfiniBand adapters (Mellanox or NVIDIA-sourced). If your existing infrastructure is Ethernet-only, you'll need a hybrid approach with gateways or a phased fabric migration — a significant architectural decision that cannot be improvised after purchase.

The MCS7500 is purpose-built for hyperscale video surveillance analytics operations — think multi-city camera networks with petabyte-scale archiving and GPU-accelerated real-time detection pipelines. It's the foundation for facilities where fabric bandwidth and deterministic latency are operational requirements, not afterthoughts.