To exit VMware, Topgolf is choosing VergeOS across more than 100 venues and its central data center. The company is replacing a mix of VMware software, vxRail hardware, and third-party backup with a single, integrated platform.
Each venue now runs a three-node VergeOS cluster. The infrastructure supports Kubernetes-based services, camera systems, real-time analytics, and venue-specific compliance workloads. VergeOS provides Topgolf with a repeatable design that runs consistently at every site, eliminating the need for multiple point products.
Why Topgolf Moved Away from VMware
The decision started with licensing. After Broadcom acquired VMware, Topgolf saw projected costs increase by 400%. Even with negotiation, the savings weren’t enough to rebuild trust in the platform. Changes to licensing terms, feature bundling, and support made future planning unpredictable.
Instead of waiting for more confusion, the team evaluated alternatives. VergeIO stood out for its simplicity and control. The team needed software they could operate without licensing constraints or hardware lock-in. VergeOS delivered that.
Migration Experience
Topgolf executes the migration to VergeOS with minimal disruption using ioMigrate. Each site follows a repeatable process that allows the team to move from VMware to VergeOS, perform upgrades, and validate functionality within a few hours.
One venue was scheduled for migration the night before an unplanned board visit. The site went live on VergeOS ahead of schedule. The following morning, the board meeting took place as planned—with no awareness that a complete platform transition had occurred the night before.
This confirmed that VergeOS could meet operational demands without requiring venue downtime. Based on this result, the team is proceeding confidently with phased rollouts across all other sites.
Every Topgolf venue runs independently. VergeOS handles all core infrastructure functions—virtualization, storage, networking, snapshots, replication, and more. Topgolf doesn’t rely on a WAN link or central controller to keep a location online. That matters when the business runs from 9 a.m. to midnight and can’t afford downtime.
Venue Deployment at Scale
The VergeOS deployment strategy includes more than 100 three-node clusters. Topgolf is replacing 6-node vxRail appliances and separate backup infrastructure with leaner 3-node configurations, utilizing standard Dell servers that offer improved performance and lower costs. VergeOS’s deduplication and resource efficiency allowed them to downsize nodes without sacrificing performance.
Operational Simplicity and Resilience
The IT team uses VergeOS Site Manager to control operations across all venues and their central data center. They organized deployments into three tenets—East, Central, and West—corresponding to the respective time zones. This design supports regional upgrades, backups, and disaster recovery without overlapping maintenance windows.
For data protection, the company replaced Rubrik with VergeOS’s built-in data protection. VergeOS uses ioClone for snapshots, ioGuardian for data repair and enhanced resiliency, and ioReplicate for near real-time DR across tenants. These features are integrated into the core platform and do not require add-ons or separate licenses.
Topgolf leveraged ioMetrics and its Terraform provider to build automated recovery workflows using VergeOS’s API. If a venue loses power, the system shuts down workloads within 15 minutes. That entire sequence used to take up to 45 minutes of manual intervention per site. When power returns, VergeOS automatically restarts operations and posts a Slack notification to the operations team.
VergeOS Deduplication: A Fundamentally Different Approach
VergeOS’ Global Inline Deduplication is a stand-out capability for Topgolf, demonstrating unique capabilities versus competing solutions. It is fundamentally different from traditional solutions because deduplication is not an afterthought but a foundational component of the entire infrastructure. Rather than being a bolt-on feature, deduplication is an integral part of the storage fabric itself, utilizing the same metadata for both deduplication and file system management, resulting in negligible overhead. This integration enables customers to use it without impacting performance while enjoying one of the industry’s best deduplication ratios.
VergeOS’s Global Deduplication is set apart by its global scope and infrastructure awareness. The hypervisor and networking are fully aware of deduplication, allowing data across all components to be deduplicated once for the entire infrastructure, unlike traditional solutions that work at the storage layer. The global capabilities ensure that no data is sent over the WAN more than once, making it ideal for multi-site deployments while achieving 4:1 or greater deduplication ratios and providing unique benefits, such as ransomware detection through data pattern analysis.
Improvements to the Player Experience
Players don’t see infrastructure, but they notice when it fails. VergeOS has enabled Topgolf to reduce recovery times, eliminate disruptions during upgrades, and keep local applications online even when a fiber cut occurs.
Faster restarts and uninterrupted venue availability directly support a smoother guest experience. This becomes particularly critical when venues host events, run tournaments, or handle high guest volumes.
The team plans to use VergeIQ, VergeIO’s integrated AI platform, for real-time player analytics and swing classification. The infrastructure is in place with GPU-equipped nodes at the central data center. These capabilities will enable Topgolf to build new guest features without requiring data to be moved to the cloud.
Cost, Scale, and Control
Topgolf expects to achieve significant annual savings by eliminating VMware, Rubrik, and vXrail. But cost wasn’t the only goal. The VergeOS deployment provides them with better operational control, a consistent platform across locations, and the flexibility to run future workloads where they make the most sense—either on-site or in the core.
VergeOS provides Topgolf with a platform that aligns with their business model: repeatable, efficient, and capable of running anywhere.
