How MIRhosting Uses 400G ZR+ to Combine Data Sovereignty with High-Performance Inter-DC Connectivity
How MIRhosting Uses 400G ZR+ to Combine Data Sovereignty with High-Performance Inter-DC Connectivity
Amsterdam remains one of Europe’s most important digital infrastructure hubs. Its value is clear: dense carrier ecosystems, strong peering options, and direct access to providers that many businesses still want to stay close to. For companies planning their infrastructure footprint, Amsterdam colocation continues to offer a real strategic advantage.
But the market has changed. Around Amsterdam, the real constraint is no longer just rack availability. In many cases, it is power - and, more broadly, how much usable capacity can still be delivered in the right place. As demand grows, more companies are being pushed beyond a single facility or even beyond a single metro area.
That creates a practical problem. Businesses still want access to Amsterdam’s connectivity ecosystem, but not every workload needs to live inside an already crowded core site. What they need is a way to scale into other locations without losing performance, consistency, or control.
This is the problem MIRhosting set out to solve.
The challenge: staying close to major hubs without being limited by them
Many organizations still want to be near key interconnection hubs in and around Amsterdam. Locations such as Nikhef, Equinix, and similar facilities remain central to the regional network landscape. The difficulty is that when too many companies are competing for the same space and power, flexibility starts to disappear.
In practice, infrastructure often ends up split across multiple rooms, halls, or entirely separate data center sites. That can work - but only if those sites still operate like one environment.
Without the right architecture, distributed infrastructure quickly becomes fragmented infrastructure.
The MIRhosting approach: physical distribution, logical consistency
MIRhosting built an inter-data-center architecture that allows customers to deploy infrastructure where capacity is actually available, including suburban and regional sites, while staying directly connected to major hubs in Amsterdam and Frankfurt over MIRhosting’s own network.
The goal was simple: customers should not have to fight for the last available rack in an overloaded core location just to stay close to the right ecosystem. They should be able to place workloads where there is room to grow, while keeping reliable access to the networks and interconnection points that matter to them.
To do that, MIRhosting combined VXLAN with 400G ZR+.
VXLAN allows multiple physical locations to be connected as one logical environment. That means infrastructure can be distributed across sites without losing segmentation, consistency, or operational control. From the customer’s point of view, the environment still behaves as a single platform, even if the hardware sits in different places.
400G ZR+ provides the transport layer that makes this model practical at scale. It enables high-capacity, direct interconnection between locations and supports the kind of performance modern distributed infrastructure requires.
For customers balancing Amsterdam colocation with expansion beyond the capital region, that combination is especially useful.
Why 400G ZR+ matters
In this architecture, 400G ZR+ is not just about bandwidth. Its real value is architectural.
Traditional transport designs often depend on additional intermediate systems, which adds complexity, operational overhead, and extra dependency points. MIRhosting took a more direct approach by using 400G ZR+ optics in the core network itself. That reduced the need for extra transport layers and helped create a cleaner topology.
The result is not only high-capacity inter-site connectivity, but also a design that is easier to operate and scale. In real deployments, performance is shaped by more than raw throughput. Simplicity, predictability, and manageability matter just as much.
In practical terms, 400G ZR+ helped MIRhosting build a platform that is powerful without becoming unnecessarily complicated.
A practical example
Consider a company that wants latency-sensitive services and interconnection-facing workloads close to Amsterdam, but prefers to place part of its compute or storage capacity in a location where more power and space are available.
Without the right inter-data-center design, that usually leads to a patchwork of separate links, inconsistent policies, and more operational overhead. With VXLAN and 400G ZR+, those environments can be tied together as one logical platform. The result is a cleaner operating model: the infrastructure is physically distributed, but it does not feel operationally fragmented.
Data sovereignty through infrastructure choice
One of the most important outcomes of this model is stronger data sovereignty.
Customers increasingly want more control over where infrastructure and workloads are placed. Sometimes that is driven by compliance. Sometimes it comes from internal policy, risk management, or a desire to avoid over-dependence on one crowded metro location.
By allowing infrastructure to be placed in alternative facilities while maintaining direct integration with major connectivity hubs, MIRhosting gives customers more control over geography, risk distribution, and long-term planning.
This is not just about where equipment physically sits. It is also about network sovereignty. Because the interconnection runs over MIRhosting’s own network, customers are not forced into a fragmented third-party model just to remain connected to Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
That creates a meaningful advantage for organizations that need both regional resilience and access to major European hubs, including colocation in Frankfurt as part of a wider connectivity strategy.
A better way to use available capacity
This approach also reflects a more realistic model for colocation growth.
If every workload is pushed into the same core locations, pressure on space and power will only increase. That is not efficient for operators, and it is not flexible for customers. A better approach is to use capacity where it actually exists, while keeping the network strong enough to make distributed deployment feel seamless.
That is what MIRhosting enables.
Customers can place infrastructure in locations with more room to grow, while maintaining direct, high-performance paths to Amsterdam and Frankfurt. For some, that means combining suburban deployments with selective Amsterdam colocation where ecosystem access matters most. For others, it means building a stronger regional footprint with direct connectivity toward Frankfurt and other strategic interconnection points.
Efficiency by design
There is also a clear efficiency benefit here.
By simplifying the transport layer and reducing the number of intermediate systems, MIRhosting improved the overall efficiency of the design. Fewer layers mean less complexity to manage and a stronger foundation for long-term operational stability.
This supports a green-by-design approach in a practical sense. Better use of available power, smarter placement decisions, and a cleaner network architecture all contribute to a more sustainable way of scaling infrastructure.
High performance in the real world
An important part of this project is that MIRhosting did not treat performance as a theoretical number.
400G ZR+ brings major advantages, but it also comes with real requirements around power, cooling, and hardware design. MIRhosting approached those constraints carefully and made decisions based on stability and production reliability. The objective was not the most aggressive specification on paper. It was a platform that performs consistently under real operating conditions.
That is what high performance should mean in infrastructure: not just speed, but the right balance of scale, resilience, efficiency, and control.
Built to grow without adding unnecessary complexity
The broader value of this architecture is straightforward. It gives customers a way to grow without being locked into a single constrained location.
Instead of forcing a choice between connectivity and capacity, MIRhosting makes it possible to keep both. Customers can deploy where expansion is realistic, while remaining directly connected to the ecosystems that support their business.
With VXLAN and 400G ZR+, physically distributed infrastructure can still operate as one logical environment. With MIRhosting’s own network, moving beyond the traditional core does not mean losing access or control. It means gaining more flexibility in how infrastructure is placed, connected, and scaled.
Conclusion
The future of colocation is not only about getting as close as possible to the biggest hubs. It is also about knowing how to use those hubs intelligently, without becoming fully dependent on their limitations.
MIRhosting’s inter-data-center architecture shows that customers do not have to choose between data sovereignty, high performance, and direct access to Amsterdam and Frankfurt. By combining VXLAN, 400G ZR+, and its own network, MIRhosting created a model that makes distributed infrastructure easier to operate, easier to scale, and more practical in the long term.