Topgolf has saved over $11.3 million in infrastructure expenses by migrating 12,000 virtual machines from VMware to VergeIO's VergeOS platform, sidestepping a 400 percent cost increase triggered by Broadcom's revised licensing structure.
Broadcom's acquisition of VMware upended the company's commercial model. The acquirer eliminated perpetual licenses and consolidated VMware products into larger, pricier SKUs, forcing enterprise customers to choose: pay dramatically more or migrate.
Topgolf had deep roots in the VMware ecosystem. For decades, the sports entertainment company—which operates more than 100 locations worldwide—relied on VMware's vSphere and ESXi virtualization software. Since 2017, it also ran VxRail, a hyperconverged infrastructure platform co-engineered by VMware and Dell. Scott Forehand, Topgolf's global infrastructure manager, said the company had contributed to VMware customer councils and books detailing its vSphere and Omnissa Horizon deployments.
The Broadcom transition forced a recalculation. Topgolf decided to migrate its on-premises workloads across venues, corporate offices, development labs, and data centers. The company selected VergeOS, a virtualization platform bundling compute, storage, disaster recovery, networking, and AI capabilities, primarily because of its multi-tenancy features and Virtual Data Center offering.
Twenty Topgolf venues still run VxRail with VMware Cloud Foundation, but Forehand expects full migration off VMware by mid-December. "Overall, we reduced or eliminated over $11.3 million in combined infrastructure costs prior to the adjustments in hardware cost in the market," Forehand said. Savings balloon further when accounting for the cost of replicating the previous VxRail deployment.
VergeIO reports acquiring approximately 70 new customers each quarter, the majority fleeing VMware. According to George Crump, VergeIO's chief marketing officer, most see meaningful reductions in software licensing, proprietary hyperconverged appliance expenses, and separate tools for data protection, replication, and multi-site management.
Customers typically migrate when facing renewal, hardware refresh, multi-site sprawl, or multi-tenancy requirements. Crump noted that organizations like Topgolf often bundle the software migration with hardware refresh or broader modernization initiatives.
