Which of the following statements is true about HPE and HPE Aruba Networking breakout cables for high-speed ports?

Question

Options

• AQSFP56 -> 4x 50 GbE QSFP28
• BQSFP56 -> 2x 100 GbE QSFP28
• CQSFP56 -> 8x 10 GbE SFP+
• DQSFP56 -> 4x 25 GbE SFP28

• A
  6% (3)
• B
  89% (48)
• C
  4% (2)
• D
  2% (1)

Explanation

Option B is correct because QSFP56 is a 200G transceiver (4 lanes × 50 Gbps using PAM4 signaling), and a 2x breakout splits it evenly into two 100GbE QSFP28 connections - preserving the full 200G of aggregate bandwidth across both ports.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A (4x 50GbE QSFP28) is wrong because QSFP28 is a 100GbE form factor (4×25G), not a 50GbE one. There is no "50GbE QSFP28" standard breakout target.
• C (8x 10GbE SFP+) is wrong because QSFP56 only has 4 electrical lanes - you cannot natively break it into 8 ports without an additional fanout stage, and this isn't a supported HPE breakout configuration.
• D (4x 25GbE SFP28) is wrong because 4×25G = only 100G total, which wastes half of the QSFP56's 200G capacity. This pattern describes a QSFP28 breakout, not QSFP56.

Memory tip: Think "56 splits in half" - a QSFP56 (200G) breaks into 2 QSFP28s (100G each). The number of output ports equals 200 ÷ 100 = 2. If you see 4 output ports, that's a QSFP28 → 4×SFP28 breakout, not QSFP56.

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