Topgolf Saves Over $11 Million by Migrating 12,000 VMs from VMware to VergeIO

Image: Ars Technica · Source

Faced with a 400% cost hike from VMware under Broadcom, Topgolf migrated 12,000 virtual machines to VergeIO's VergeOS platform, cutting software costs by 77% and hardware spend by 87%, saving over $11.3 million.

Topgolf, the global sports entertainment company known for its interactive golf venues, has completed a significant migration from VMware virtualization software to VergeIO’s VergeOS platform, reportedly saving over $11.3 million. This major change was driven by an impending 400% increase in VMware costs following Broadcom’s acquisition and strategic shifts, including discontinuing perpetual licenses and bundling VMware products into pricier packages.

Before this migration, Topgolf’s VMware environment was extensive and deeply integrated, spanning decades of use of vSphere and ESXi, and incorporating VMware’s VxRail hyperconverged infrastructure since 2017. Topgolf’s IT leadership highlighted that managing numerous VMware clusters and vCenter instances at their scale was challenging, particularly since VMware did not support segregating clusters into multi-tenant environments. In contrast, VergeOS offers multi-tenant Virtual Data Centers, enabling segmentation by tenant such as geographic zones, easing upgrades, maintenance, and lab environment creation.

The migration encompassed moving roughly 12,000 virtual machines and replacing 650 VxRail hosts with about 400 Dell PowerEdge servers over approximately six months. Storage capacity shifted from six-node VxRail clusters with 35TB to three-node VergeOS clusters with 5TB, resulting in an 87% reduction in hardware expenditures despite market cost increases. Software licensing expenses dropped by 77%, and Topgolf secured a favorable five-year enterprise license agreement with VergeIO, surpassing VMware's three-year offer.

Topgolf also leveraged VergeIO to support advanced applications such as their proprietary Toptracer system, which processes significant daily network data for golf ball tracking. VergeIO assisted in optimizing traffic latency and distribution across cluster nodes. VergeOS’s API-first architecture supported infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform and Ansible, facilitating automation without reengineering existing workflows.

Challenges included coordinating the migration alongside upgrades to Topgolf’s gaming hardware and infrastructure modernization. Integration with third-party solutions like Rubrik and LogicMonitor required adjustments, as VergeOS’s ecosystem is less mature than VMware’s. Topgolf addressed data protection gaps by adopting VergeIO snapshotting and supplementing security features with Veeam.

VergeIO sees on average 70 new customers quarterly, with most migrating from VMware for reasons such as upcoming renewals, hardware refreshes, or multi-site management needs. The case of Topgolf exemplifies how organizations with large, complex environments can achieve significant cost savings and operational benefits by shifting away from VMware to alternative virtualization platforms like VergeOS.