From Plan B to Plan A: The Alinsco Insurance VMware Exit
Zero-Downtime VMware Migration Delivers Cost Savings and Operational Simplicity
Summary
Alinsco Insurance faced a VMware renewal with no quote and no visibility into future costs. The team stood up VergeOS as a Plan B in Mexico, then made it Plan A, converting its Fort Worth VxRail cluster node by node during business hours with no maintenance window and no downtime. The same hardware now runs faster, the licensing risk is gone, and support answers arrive in minutes.
A contingency plan became the platform Alinsco now runs its business on.
About Alinsco Insurance
Alinsco Insurance is a Texas auto insurer headquartered in Fort Worth. Since 2003 it has served millions of Texas drivers through a network of thousands of independent insurance agents. Its products range from credit-scored policies to coverage options for drivers with foreign identification, and the company runs its own web applications for policy management and claims processing.
Before the migration, Alinsco ran a five-node VxRail production cluster in Fort Worth and a two-node VMware cluster with StorMagic at its site in Campeche, Mexico. Agents and customers depend on those applications every business day, so the infrastructure behind them has no room for downtime.
A Renewal With No Quote
Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware put Alinsco in a difficult spot. The license renewal was coming due with no visibility into future costs, and the company’s Dell representative could not get answers from Broadcom. At one point Broadcom’s systems could not produce a quote for 30 days during an internal transition.
“We never did get a quote for our VMware renewal. It never came. I felt like that was part of their ploy, wait until the last minute so that their clients are left with no options but to re-sign.”
Darrin Kirby, CIO, Alinsco Insurance
Any response had to fit Alinsco’s operating reality. The insurance applications are mission-critical, the Fort Worth cluster runs production, and the remote site in Mexico runs on two nodes. A migration would have to happen with no scheduled maintenance windows.
Plan B Becomes Plan A
Alinsco first evaluated VergeOS as a Plan B during the wait for VMware pricing. In October 2023 the team deployed its first VergeOS environment at the Campeche site, using equipment from a recently closed office. Testing went well enough that the contingency became the strategy.
“We made that our Plan A. We had already found and figured out, just through the testing, that VergeOS is definitely going to be the way forward.”
Darrin Kirby, CIO, Alinsco Insurance
Zero-Downtime Migration, One Node at a Time
The team protected business continuity with a node-by-node approach. In Fort Worth, Alinsco built a temporary two-node VergeOS environment from older equipment and used the built-in VergeOS migration tools to back up its VMware VMs into it. Then the team removed VxRail nodes one at a time. Each node received a VergeOS installation and rejoined a growing VergeOS cluster.
The entire migration ran during normal business hours with no disruption to users or customers, and the final cutover finished on August 31, 2024. The team moved web servers during off-hours as an extra precaution, and those moves also saw no downtime.
“All that was done during the day, with no maintenance window. No one even knew that it happened.”
Bryan Dore, Director of IT, Alinsco Insurance
Same Hardware, Better Performance
Alinsco still runs on its existing VxRail hardware. Park Place Technologies now maintains it under a contract with global coverage and four-hour response times, and Dell firmware updates remain available without an active maintenance contract. Performance on the same hardware improved after the move to VergeOS.
“That’s a huge benefit to us, being able to keep running on this older gear, which quite frankly runs faster with VergeOS than it did with VMware. Why do we need to upgrade?”
Darrin Kirby, CIO, Alinsco Insurance
Deployment Timeline
Alinsco adopted VergeOS in phases and modernized each site with no business disruption. The first two-node cluster went live in Mexico in October 2023. The five-node production cluster in Fort Worth followed in July 2024, Mexico added two more nodes in October 2024, and a two-node expansion in Virginia came online in October 2025.
Layered Data Protection
VergeOS-native capabilities provide Alinsco’s frontline data protection, with retention set at each layer. Local hourly snapshots keep 24 hours of history and daily immutable snapshots keep 45 days. The team exports snapshots to a NAS with three-day retention, and cross-site replication between Fort Worth and Mexico holds 90 days. Veeam backs up the few remaining physical servers and a handful of desktops.
The team has tested every recovery scenario in real situations, including full VM restoration under pressure, individual file recovery by mounting a snapshot, and complete system recovery.
Support Measured in Minutes
Alinsco ranks VergeIO as its top vendor for support quality. The VergeIO support team self-escalates when needed, and engineers join the call with the customer still on the line. Support calls with other vendors have run past eight hours.
“90% of the time, I get an answer in the first two minutes. Escalations have never taken more than an hour or two. It’s almost immediate.”
Bryan Dore, Director of IT, Alinsco Insurance
Operational Simplicity
The unified VergeOS interface removed the need to switch between management tools. A recent system upgrade took half a day with minimal intervention. VxRail upgrades required scheduled pre-flight meetings and constant online monitoring.
“It’s very hands-off, actually. On a day-to-day basis, it’s very easy to perform tasks such as creating a virtual machine, cloning one, or recovering a virtual machine.”
Bryan Dore, Director of IT, Alinsco Insurance
Cost Savings
Alinsco reduced infrastructure costs in several places after the migration.
Licensing removed
VMware renewal costs disappeared entirely, along with StorMagic licensing fees at the remote sites.
No hardware refresh
The planned VxRail refresh became unnecessary. The existing nodes run VergeOS and run it faster.
Lower maintenance
Third-party maintenance from Park Place Technologies costs less than the OEM contract it replaced.
Ada Zuniga, Senior Network Engineer at Alinsco, points out that VergeOS networking also replaced the need for separate products such as NSX, which removed another layer of complexity and cost.
| Area | Before | After: VergeOS |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | VMware on VxRail, StorMagic | VergeOS on the same hardware |
| Renewal | No quote, no cost visibility | Licensing risk removed |
| Migration window | Scheduled maintenance windows | Business hours, no downtime |
| Upgrades | Pre-flight meetings and constant monitoring | Half a day, minimal intervention |
| Hardware maintenance | OEM contract | Park Place, global coverage, 4-hour response |
| Remote-site storage | StorMagic licensing | Built into VergeOS |
| Networking | Separate products such as NSX | Built into VergeOS |
| Support | Calls lasting 8+ hours | First answer in 2 minutes, 90% of the time |
Looking Ahead
Alinsco has additional unused servers it plans to add for expansion, again without buying new hardware. The team is weighing a move of AWS workloads back to on-premises infrastructure, and the development team plans to put the new VergeOS AI features to work with the organization’s data kept private.
The Bottom Line
For organizations considering a similar move, Kirby keeps his advice simple.
“It’s a no-brainer. I’m not really sure what anyone would be afraid of. There is just absolutely no downside. So what are you waiting for? You could actually do this tonight if you wanted to.”
Darrin Kirby, CIO, Alinsco Insurance
Alinsco started with a Plan B and finished with a platform it plans to grow on, at every site.
See What VergeOS Does for Your Environment
Alinsco converted its existing VxRail cluster to VergeOS node by node, during business hours. Talk with a VergeIO engineer about what that path looks like for your hardware.