Topgolf Migrates Infrastructure to Cut VMware Costs
The company saved $11.3 million by switching to VergeIO as VMware license pricing shifts force an industry-wide re-evaluation.
Updated on Oct. 25, 2026 in Data Centers
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Topgolf has migrated 12,000 virtual machines from VMware to VergeOS, a transition expected to reach completion by mid-December 2026. This shift follows a 400 percent increase in VMware licensing costs, prompting the organization to replace 650 VxRail hosts with 400 Dell PowerEdge servers.
Why it matters
The migration highlights how Broadcom's shift to a mandatory subscription-based model for VMware software is forcing large enterprises to re-evaluate their data center infrastructure. The cost delta between legacy virtualization platforms and emerging competitors is driving significant hardware and software spending cuts.
Topgolf replaced 650 legacy VxRail hosts with 400 Dell PowerEdge servers, achieving an 87 percent reduction in hardware spending. The migration also secured a five-year enterprise agreement with VergeIO, compared to the three-year terms previously offered by VMware.
The players
Topgolf
A global sports and entertainment company that operates large-scale venue infrastructure.
VergeIO
A developer of virtualization software that replaces legacy hypervisors with integrated storage, network, and compute management.
VMware
A provider of virtualization and cloud computing software now owned by Broadcom.
Dell
A manufacturer of enterprise-grade server hardware, including the PowerEdge line used in data center consolidation.
The details
The migration utilized VergeOS, a software-defined data center platform that supports multi-tenancy, to segregate infrastructure deployments by time zone. Engineers maintained existing infrastructure-as-code workflows—the practice of managing hardware configuration through machine-readable definition files—using tools including Terraform and Ansible. This allowed the transition to occur while keeping existing deployment logic intact.
Timeline
2017: Topgolf initially adopted VMware virtualization technologies.
Mid-December 2026: Expected date for the completion of the full transition off VMware.
The Tech Race
This migration follows the industry-wide trend of enterprises exiting the VMware ecosystem following Broadcom's acquisition and subsequent licensing overhaul. VergeIO is currently capitalizing on this churn, adding approximately 70 new customers per quarter.
The change enables the organization to maintain existing automation workflows, such as Terraform and Ansible, without requiring re-skilling for staff. This migration significantly reduces operational overhead, which Topgolf intends to reallocate as part of its five-year enterprise strategy.
The takeaway
Large organizations are demonstrating that aggressive virtualization licensing hikes can justify the operational risk of migrating entire data center stacks to new platforms. Watch for similar migration announcements as other firms face VMware license renewals with 400 percent cost increases.
What happens next
Topgolf is scheduled to finalize its full transition away from VMware infrastructure by mid-December 2026.
Further reading
Explore more shifts in enterprise infrastructure at /tech/data-centers/.
Source note: This article includes information reported by RocketNews.
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