Topgolf reports more than $11.3 million in savings after VMware move
Topgolf says its switch from VMware cut or avoided more than $11.3 million in combined infrastructure costs, though 20 sites remained on VMware.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
2 min read
Topgolf VMware savings exceeded $11.3 million in reduced or eliminated combined infrastructure costs, according to Scott Forehand, the company’s global infrastructure manager. Forehand told Ars Technica the figure was calculated before adjustments for changes in hardware-market costs, so it does not represent a software-licensing saving alone.
The company moved roughly 12,000 virtual machines from VMware technology to VergeIO’s VergeOS platform while replacing much of its VxRail hardware with Dell PowerEdge servers, Ars Technica reported. Topgolf said it began looking for an alternative after projecting that its VMware costs would rise 400% under changes made by Broadcom.
Why did Topgolf move away from VMware?
Topgolf said price was one factor, but it also wanted a system better suited to a distributed operation spanning its venues, offices, labs and data centers. Forehand told Ars that VergeOS offered tenant segmentation, allowing the company to separate deployments by time zone and make maintenance and upgrades easier.
A virtual machine is software that runs like a separate computer on shared physical hardware. For Topgolf, the migration also involved changing the underlying server equipment and parts of its gaming setup, meaning the reported cost figure covers a broader infrastructure project rather than VMware licensing by itself.
According to Ars Technica, Topgolf replaced 650 VxRail hosts with about 400 Dell PowerEdge servers over about six months. Forehand said the company’s software costs fell 77% and its comparative hardware spending fell 87%, while cautioning that higher prices for compute and storage had changed the original hardware calculations.
Was Topgolf completely off VMware?
No. At the time of Forehand’s comments, 20 Topgolf venues were still using VxRail and VMware Cloud Foundation. He said the company expected to complete its VMware exit by the second week of December, Ars Technica reported.
The work also brought trade-offs. Forehand said Topgolf had to coordinate replacement of game panels and venue wiring alongside a new Kubernetes-based gaming architecture. The company also found integration gaps with tools including Rubrik and LogicMonitor.
Topgolf used VergeIO snapshotting to address a data-protection need after leaving Rubrik, Forehand told Ars. He said the company was turning to Veeam for capabilities it needed for threat hunting and ransomware protection.
VergeIO Chief Marketing Officer George Crump told Ars that Topgolf’s dollar result was not typical because of the company’s scale. VergeIO has also published a promotional Topgolf case-study page, but the supplied material does not include an independent audit of the company’s savings calculation.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.