Why choose MC-Node? The strength of Dutch hosting
When you are looking for hosting that is fast, reliable and secure, where your provider sits matters a great deal. At MC-Node we did not just pick a strategic location in the Netherlands — we invested heavily in a network and infrastructure most hosts would envy. Here is why that matters for you.
Strategically based in the Netherlands
Our racks are in Hengelo, a strong position for fast connections within the Netherlands and to the rest of Europe. Through direct WDM links to Nikhef in Amsterdam — the central hub of Dutch internet traffic — we deliver both very low latency and high reliability.
We run three WDM connections to Nikhef, giving a theoretical capacity of 210 Gbit/s. At Nikhef we connect to a broad set of transit providers including Royale Hosting, G-Core, Serverside and Cogent.
We are also present on several Internet Exchanges: Speed-IX, Frys-IX, Inter-IX and LS-IX.
Total uplink capacity is well over 100 Gbit/s, and with ASN 211750 we are fully independent in how we route traffic. Redundancy? Certainly — if everything towards Amsterdam were to fail, we still have a separate Cogent link directly in Hengelo.
A network built to handle anything
At the heart of our network sit two Arista DCS-7280TR-48C6-F core routers, together capable of routing up to 1.2 TB/s — comfortably more than we need. Each rack connects through three Arista DCS-7050TX-64-F switches at 160 Gbit/s each: two for servers, one for IPMI, fully separated and with their own out-of-band management ports.
IPMI access is only possible through our VPN or a proxy we set up specifically. Security and segmentation come first.
Servers we build ourselves
Instead of buying off-the-shelf, we build our servers entirely in house. That lets us:
- keep prices lower
- put together custom configurations
- respond flexibly to what customers actually need
For our AM5 socket servers we use consumer motherboards with custom IPMI solutions — an unusual mix of affordability and manageability, well suited to customers who want that bit more control.
Full visibility through monitoring
We take monitoring seriously. Our team uses:
- sFlow for real-time analysis of incoming traffic
- Grafana dashboards for every port, IX and transit link
- Betterstack to detect incidents immediately
When something breaks we are alerted by phone within 30 seconds and act straight away.
Backups you can rely on
We recently added a new backup server with 192 TB of storage and 40 Gbit/s of bandwidth. Every night we back up all services automatically, moving around 20 TB of data daily. Your data is in safe hands.
In summary
At MC-Node we do not take the easy route. We invest in our own hardware, build everything ourselves and make sure every detail is right — from network to server to monitoring. Combined with our Dutch location and direct links to the most important exchanges, that makes us a strong choice for anyone looking for powerful, reliable and affordable hosting.
Ready to move, or have specific requirements? Get in touch and we will put together something that fits your project.