Topgolf has saved over $11 million by migrating 12,000 virtual machines from VMware to VergeIO's VergeOS platform, bypassing a projected 400 percent increase in VMware costs under Broadcom's new licensing structure.
The company had run deep on VMware for decades. Topgolf, which operates over 100 locations worldwide, deployed VxRail—a hyperconverged infrastructure platform co-engineered by VMware and Dell—in 2017 and used vSphere and ESXi across its venue, office, lab, and data center footprint. Scott Forehand, Topgolf's global infrastructure manager, participated in VMware customer councils and leads the Dallas/Fort Worth VMware User Group.
Broadcom's decision to discontinue perpetual VMware licenses and consolidate products into fewer, costlier SKUs forced Topgolf to model alternatives. The licensing overhaul made long-term planning untenable. "Most customers migrating from VMware see significant reductions," said George Crump, VergeIO Chief Marketing Officer. "These savings typically come from cutting software licensing fees and avoiding proprietary hyperconverged infrastructure appliances and separate tools for data protection, replication, and multi-site management."
Topgolf reduced or eliminated more than $11.3 million in combined infrastructure costs. That figure does not account for subsequent hardware market adjustments, which would increase the comparative savings against a similar VxRail solution today.
Twenty Topgolf venues continue running VxRail with VMware Cloud Foundation. The company expects to complete its full transition off VMware by mid-December.
Topgolf selected VergeOS for its integrated approach—compute, storage, disaster recovery, networking, and AI tenancy in a single platform—and leverages VergeIO's Virtual Data Center offering for multi-site needs. VergeIO acquires approximately 70 new customers each quarter, most transitioning from VMware. These migrators typically face renewal deadlines, require hardware refreshes, operate multiple sites, or need multi-tenancy capabilities.
