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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 7, 2025

Pfeiffer University Selects VergeIO to Replace VMware, Cutting IT Costs by 85%

Ann Arbor, MI — October 7, 2025 — VergeIO, the leading VMware alternative, today announced that Pfeiffer University, a private nonprofit liberal arts institution in North Carolina, has modernized its IT infrastructure with VergeOS. The transition reduced Pfeiffer’s infrastructure costs by approximately 85% while providing students with real-world learning opportunities.

Pfeiffer University, with over 135 years of history, is recognized for its personalized education and hands-on learning approach. When VMware licensing changes, rising costs, and poor support responsiveness threatened to overwhelm the small IT department, CIO Ryan Conte and his team began evaluating alternatives.

“VMware wasn’t calling us back,” said CIO Ryan Conte. “VergeOS was the only product I looked at that didn’t need hardware. Others told me to buy new, but I had good servers with life left in them. VergeOS, let me use them.”

VMware Challenges

VMware’s move to per-core subscriptions increased Pfeiffer’s projected costs to $35,000–$45,000 annually, compounded by the elimination of discounts offered to higher education institutions. In addition, MSPs pushed for hardware refreshes or cloud migrations that would have cost Pfeiffer $100,000 to $200,000, a significant capital expense for most private nonprofit institutions.

Why VergeIO

CIO Ryan Conte and his team evaluated public cloud services, scaled-down VMware approaches, and other on-premises platforms, but all fell short of expectations.

VergeIO stood out because it:

  • Supported reuse of HP Gen9/10/11 and Dell servers, allowing the university to repurpose existing equipment.
  • Combined virtualization, storage, networking, and data protection into a single platform.
  • Enabled in-house migration of 30–40 VMs without professional services.
  • Delivered built-in disaster recovery, replication, and ransomware protection, eliminating the need for a separate $20,000–$30,000 backup project.
  • Provided rapid support response times.

Three senior CIS students — Mathius Dessureau, Jason Giesbrecht, and Justin Giesbrecht — played a pivotal role in Pfeiffer’s transition from VMware to VergeOS. They conducted a comparative analysis, participated in the VergeOS proof of concept, and supported its implementation. Their contributions not only advanced the project but also reinforced Pfeiffer’s culture of hands-on learning, providing them with valuable real-world experience that will benefit their careers.

“Pfeiffer University’s project is a great example of how VergeOS empowers smaller IT teams to do more with less. By reusing hardware, integrating students into the process, and consolidating core IT functions, they achieved dramatic cost savings and improved resilience. This is exactly the kind of outcome VergeIO was designed to deliver,” said Jason Yaeger, SVP of Engineering, VergeIO.

Results

By adopting VergeOS, Pfeiffer avoided costly hardware refreshes, improved resiliency, and modernized its IT foundation. The project reduced projected infrastructure costs by 85% compared to VMware, aligning with the university’s mission to combine education with real-world experience.

The Pfeiffer journey away from VMware is documented in the case study here

About Pfeiffer University

Pfeiffer University is a private nonprofit liberal arts institution with campuses in Misenheimer, Charlotte, and Albemarle, North Carolina. With an 11:1 student-to-faculty ratio and a mission rooted in service and leadership, Pfeiffer combines academic rigor with practical experience to prepare students for success.

About VergeIO

VergeIO is the leading VMware alternative. Its product, VergeOS, is an ultraconverged infrastructure (UCI) platform that unifies virtualization, storage, networking, AI, and data protection into a single unified software codebase, running on commodity x86 hardware. Organizations use VergeOS to reduce costs, simplify operations, and ensure resiliency while avoiding vendor lock-in.

Media Contact:
Judy Smith, JPR Communications
[email protected]
818-522-9673

Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: , ,

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Modernizing VDI and infrastructure requires looking beyond silos. Too often, IT leaders view a VMware exit as a hypervisor issue alone or consider VDI in isolation as a desktop project. Both perspectives miss the larger opportunity. Rising costs, tighter licensing terms, and fragmented management show that desktops and infrastructure are inseparable parts of the same challenge.

Reconsidering VDI makes sense in this context. Compliance, ransomware, and AI data governance all drive the need for centralized desktops, but the real value comes when VDI is addressed as part of a broader consolidation effort. By unifying desktops, servers, storage, and networking, organizations cut costs, reduce operational drag, and prepare for a future where governance, resiliency, and private AI must be delivered from the same architecture.

VAR solution architects can guide IT professionals through this shift, reframing VDI not as an endpoint but as a catalyst for infrastructure-wide modernization.

VDI as the Pressure Point

VDI shows pain fast. It faces users directly. As a result, performance issues and rising costs draw attention quickly. Traditional platforms built on multiple consoles and back-end dependencies create complexity and inflate expense.

When IT teams move to replace VDI, they often uncover a larger problem: fragmentation across desktops, servers, storage, and networking. Treating VDI as a standalone issue only delays the modernization that consolidation delivers.

Reconsidering VDI in a Consolidation Strategy

Many organizations ruled out VDI years ago as too costly or complex. That decision fit the time, but conditions have shifted. In a broader modernization strategy, VDI deserves a second look.

Drivers now extend beyond cost. Compliance and security mandates demand stronger control over user access and data handling. Rising ransomware threats make centralized desktops with consistent protection more attractive than scattered endpoints. Emerging AI projects raise data sovereignty concerns. Training or prompting AI models with organizational data requires internal processing, not exposure to public cloud services.

Reintroducing VDI as part of infrastructure consolidation aligns user access with the same architecture that runs servers, storage, and networking. This approach simplifies security, strengthens compliance, and positions the organization for a future where governance and AI readiness intersect.

Fragmentation Drives Cost and Risk

Modernizing VDI and infrastructure

Running desktops, servers, storage, and networking as separate projects creates duplication and inefficiency. Each system brings its own licenses, contracts, and management tools. Vendors often trade blame during troubleshooting, slowing resolution.

Fragmentation inflates operating costs and drags IT response. The extra budget spent on silos becomes a “fragmentation tax” that drains resources from modernization projects.

Modernizing VDI and infrastructure as the Smarter Strategy

Modernizing VDI and infrastructure together eliminates the duplication and inefficiency that silos create. A unified platform removes overlapping systems, merges licensing into one model, and provides a single management plane for desktops, servers, storage, and networking.

Consolidation reduces software spend, shortens the learning curve for IT staff, and strengthens resiliency through integrated data protection. Organizations gain a simpler, more predictable environment that supports current workloads and prepares for private AI.

VAR solution architects expand their role with this strategy. The conversation shifts from tactical fixes to strategic modernization, creating larger opportunities and deeper customer relationships.

Fragmentation vs. Consolidation at a Glance

FactorFragmented InfrastructureConsolidated Infrastructure (VergeOS + Inuvika + Cirrus Data)
Licensing ModelPer-core, per-user, multiple vendor renewalsStraightforward per-server + concurrent-user licensing
Management4–6 consoles across desktops, servers, storage, networkingSingle management plane for desktops and infrastructure
Operational Overhead30–50% of IT time on troubleshooting and integrationReduced admin effort; IT focuses on strategic projects
Resiliency & ProtectionDisjointed backup and DR across silosIntegrated resiliency and protection across all workloads
Cost TrajectoryIncreasing 60% or more, year on yearPredictable costs with extended hardware lifecycles
Future Readiness (AI, etc.)Limited support; data risk in public cloudsBuilt-in private AI inferencing within secure infrastructure

Outcomes That Matter to Organizations

Modernizing VDI and infrastructure via consolidation delivers value across industries, even though each faces different pressures.

In education, universities have reduced “computer lab sprawl” by virtualizing applications and enabling student-device access, shrinking both the number and size of labs. The University of Massachusetts Lowell found utilization as low as 30% in some labs and cut costs by shifting to VDI (EdTech Magazine). Virtual desktops also lower maintenance and staffing needs while aligning licensing with fluctuating student populations.

In healthcare, enterprise VDI delivers 99.9% uptime for clinical desktops. Unified architectures prevent outages common in siloed hardware and provide secure, consistent access to patient data.

SMBs, caught between enterprise demands and enterprise pricing, are turning to consolidation. 95% of IT leaders plan vendor consolidation, with 80% citing the need to reduce point solutions (CIO). Companies that consolidate cut up to 20% of operational costs, extend hardware lifecycles, and simplify vendor management.

Across all sectors, modernizing VDI and infrastructure lowers cost, improves service delivery, and prepares IT for future projects.

Modernizing VDI and Infrastructure Inuvika, VergeIO, and Cirrus Data

Consolidation requires more than swapping point products. It demands platforms designed to unify. VergeOS provides that foundation by combining server virtualization, storage, networking, and resiliency in one code base. It replaces loosely integrated stacks with one consistent architecture and a straightforward licensing model. VergeOS licenses per server, regardless of CPUs or cores, giving organizations predictable costs as hardware evolves.

Modernizing VDI and infrastructure

Inuvika complements this foundation with a Linux-based VDI platform that eliminates Windows Server back ends. Its concurrent-user model fits actual usage patterns, and its lightweight footprint makes deployment simple.

VergeOS now integrates AI into the infrastructure. Organizations deliver full inferencing capabilities to virtual desktops while keeping data private. Industries with strict sovereignty requirements can run AI internally without exposure to external cloud services.

Cirrus Data extends the strategy with efficient data mobility. IT teams migrate workloads from multiple platforms into a VergeOS cluster without extended downtime or high risk. VAR solution architects present customers with a clear, practical path to unification instead of a disruptive overhaul.

Together, VergeIO, Inuvika, and Cirrus Data modernize VDI and infrastructure as part of one unified strategy. IT professionals replace fragmentation with a single architecture, simplify licensing, and prepare for secure AI adoption.

How Do You Know You’re Ready for Modernizing VDI and infrastructure at the Same Time?

Reintroducing or modernizing VDI often signals more than a desktop change. It marks a review of the entire infrastructure. The key question is whether the current environment can deliver desktops, workloads, and applications securely from one platform.

Clear signals include rising licensing costs, compliance demands that outpace endpoint controls, or ransomware exposing weaknesses in scattered systems. The growth of AI adds urgency, as private inferencing requires both secure VDI and integrated infrastructure.

VAR solution architects can use these questions to uncover fragmentation, and IT professionals can use them to assess readiness. In either case, the answer points to treating VDI as part of a wider consolidation plan.

Modernizing VDI and infrastructure: Readiness Assessment

Whether you’re looking to modernize existing VDI, exit current solutions, or reconsider VDI after dismissing it previously, these questions will help you determine if consolidation is the right strategy for your organization.

Current VDI Users – Should You Consolidate or Exit?

  • Are your VDI licensing costs increasing faster than your user growth?
  • Do you manage more than three separate platforms just to deliver desktops and applications?
  • Are you spending more than 30% of your IT time troubleshooting integration issues between VDI and infrastructure systems?
  • Has your current VDI vendor changed licensing terms or roadmap direction in ways that concern you?

Organizations Without VDI – Is It Time to Revisit?

  • Have compliance requirements (HIPAA, SOX, GDPR) become more stringent since you last evaluated VDI?
  • Are ransomware concerns highlighting the vulnerability of scattered endpoints across your organization?
  • Do you need to support AI initiatives while keeping organizational data internal and secure?
  • Are remote work demands outpacing what traditional endpoint management can deliver?

Universal Consolidation Readiness Indicators

  • Do you currently pay multiple vendors for infrastructure services (servers, storage, networking, desktops)?
  • Has your total IT licensing spend increased by more than 20% over the past two years without corresponding gains in capability?
  • Are you planning major infrastructure refresh cycles in the next 12–18 months?
  • Do different departments manage their own IT relationships, creating silos and duplicate spending?

If you answered “yes” to three or more questions in any category, infrastructure consolidation—with VDI as a catalyst—deserves serious consideration. The timing and technology landscape have likely shifted enough to make what seemed impractical before into a strategic advantage today.

Ready to see how these solutions would fit into your environment? Schedule a strategic planning session to walk through a virtual whiteboard overview, demonstrating how VergeOS, Inuvika, and Cirrus Data would modernize your infrastructure and deliver the benefits outlined in this post.

Register for the Infrastructure Masterclass

Thursday, September 25th delivers a two-part masterclass in consolidation with two VergeIO webinars built to give IT professionals and VAR solution architects a complete view of modernization. Together, they provide a buy-one-get-one-free opportunity to understand how desktops, workloads, and AI-ready infrastructure fit into a single strategy.

The first event is:

Infrastructure + VDI Replacement: The Complete Partner Opportunity
📅 Thursday, September 25, 2025
🕐 10:00 AM ET

This session targets VAR solution architects and shows how modernizing VDI and infrastructure can lower costs, strengthen security, and simplify operations. It will cover how to position modernization strategies, expand engagements, and grow recurring revenue. IT professionals are certainly welcome to attend and will gain insight into how desktops and infrastructure operate together in practice. The session also features CCSI, a cloud service provider running VergeOS and Inuvika in production, demonstrating their live environment and outcomes.

Later in the day, VergeIO will host:

After the VMware Exit – How to Consolidate, Repatriate, and Prepare for AI
📅 Thursday, September 25, 2025
🕐 1:00 PM ET

This session invites everyone, speaking to both IT professionals and VAR solution architects. It explains why only treating the VMware exit as a hypervisor swap creates sprawl and complexity. Experts will demonstrate how full consolidation, repatriation of workloads from a public cloud, and preparation of environments for private AI all integrate into a single strategy. Attendees will see how a universal migration path and a unified infrastructure platform cut costs, simplify operations, and prepare for the future.

Together, these two webinars provide the complete picture: desktops and applications in the first session, consolidation and AI readiness in the second. Attending both delivers unmatched guidance and real-world proof in one day.

Conclusion

IT professionals face pressures that extend across desktops and infrastructure. Rising costs, rigid licensing, compliance demands, and growing security threats all point to one issue: fragmentation. Treating VDI as an isolated project delays progress. The smarter move is to use VDI modernization as the catalyst for consolidation that unifies desktops, servers, storage, networking, and AI.

For IT professionals, consolidation creates a predictable, secure, and resilient environment that supports both current and future needs. For VAR solution architects, it creates opportunities to lead larger, more strategic engagements and replace transactional deals with long-term modernization plans.

Filed Under: VDI Tagged With: , , ,

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What comes after the VMware exit matters more than what you leave behind. Don’t replace VMware with Nutanix, or Hyper-V, or the hypervisor du jour, and declare the problem solved. That approach misses the real opportunity. The VMware exit served as the compelling event that enterprises needed to finally consolidate years of tactical decisions, which had built silos across the data center, edge, and cloud, leaving them ill-prepared for future workloads.

Most enterprises already run multiple hypervisors. VMware sits at the core, but Hyper-V handles Windows-centric applications. Nutanix crept in through departmental projects. Edge sites run different stacks. Cloud platforms host workloads that were meant to be temporary but never came back. Swapping VMware for another hypervisor leaves this mess intact.

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The right move is to use this disruption to drive complete consolidation. One operating model must span the data center, edge, ROBO, and venues. One platform must handle virtual machines, containers, AI workloads, backup, and disaster recovery. Anything less retains the same fragmented complexity, albeit under a different label.

The path forward is clear. Enterprises must modernize on-premises infrastructure to consolidate silos, pull back workloads that never belonged in the cloud, and build a platform ready to run AI alongside every other workload. Anything less leaves IT repeating the same cycle of sprawl under new names.

After The VMware Exit, Modernize Infrastructure

After the VMware exit modernize infrastructure

After the VMware exit the goal should be complete consolidation of the infrastructure. Consolidation starts with modernization, but not the kind most vendors sell. Too often, “modernization” is a rebrand of the same fragmentation—another hypervisor, another storage system, another management console. Real modernization means collapsing silos into a single operating model, extending the useful life of hardware, and giving IT the agility to run any workload on a standard foundation.

Modernization done right reduces the number of moving parts, stretches servers and storage to five or seven years instead of three or four, and creates a single system capable of supporting virtual machines, containers, and AI workloads without building separate stacks. The VMware exit is the moment to stop layering tactical fixes and start building a strategic, consolidated platform that lasts.

After The VMware Exit, Repatriate the Cloud

After the VMware exit repatriate cloud workloads

Another step after the VMware exit is cloud repatriation, which involves consolidating on-premises resources and pulling back workloads that should never have been moved to the cloud in the first place. The public cloud provided quick relief when IT needed capacity fast, but many of those temporary moves became permanent. Enterprises now pay unpredictable monthly bills for capacity they could run more consistently and economically on infrastructure they already own.

Those costs rise every quarter, driven by storage growth, variable I/O performance, and punitive egress charges. The fix is repatriation. Pull back the steady-state workloads—databases, file services, ERP systems, and VDI—that run better under direct control. Keep the cloud for temporal workloads where its economics make sense. Renting a car for a trip is practical. Renting one every day for your daily commute is reckless. The same logic should be applied to cloud consumption.

AI makes the case even stronger. Training and inference create data gravity that punishes cloud economics. Large and growing datasets need to sit close to the GPU and compute resources. Moving them back and forth only adds cost and latency. Repatriation is not just about saving money. It is about putting the right workloads in the right place and preparing the enterprise for AI.

After The VMware Exit, Prepare for Private AI

Another step after the VMware exit is preparing infrastructure to run AI as a core function, not as an afterthought. AI is no longer experimental, and it cannot be treated as a side project or pushed into the cloud as a service. The datasets that feed AI are the most valuable assets enterprises own. Sending them to a public cloud raises sovereignty concerns, exposes sensitive data, and locks the enterprise into consumption models that only grow more expensive.

After the VMware exit prepare for AI

Cloud-based AI also adds token costs that accumulate with every transaction. What begins as a pilot quickly becomes an unpredictable monthly bill. Treating AI this way repeats the same mistakes that left steady-state workloads stranded in the cloud.

The right move is to make AI a first-class citizen in the same operating system that runs virtual machines, databases, and desktops. GPU pooling, high-throughput storage, and predictable networking must be built into the core platform, not added later as separate stacks. Vendors eager to sell AI-only servers and storage will lead enterprises straight into another silo. Building AI into the unified infrastructure from the start prevents this and keeps the estate ready for tomorrow’s demands.

What’s Required for Complete Consolidation

Modernizing on-premises, repatriating the right workloads, and preparing for AI all point to the same conclusion: consolidation only works if the foundation is built right. Enterprises can’t afford to solve one problem only to create another. To break the cycle of sprawl, two non-negotiable capabilities are required. Miss either, and the silos return under a new set of logos.

The first requirement is a universal infrastructure operating system. It must integrate virtualization, storage, networking, GPUs, backup, and disaster recovery into a single code base. One policy model must stretch from the data center to the edge, ROBO, and venues. The operating system must run on a wide range of x86 servers so organizations can reuse hardware during transitions and extend refresh cycles to five or seven years instead of three. Licensing must be per server, not per core or per socket. The platform must treat AI as a core workload with GPU pooling, high-throughput storage, and predictable networking built into the design.

The second requirement is a universal migration path. The path must cover VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix, OpenStack, and workloads sitting in a public cloud. It must synchronize data while production continues to run and cut over in minutes. It must scale through automation, with migration-as-code recipes that standardize each step and log every action for audit. Without this path, consolidation remains an idea on paper, not a result in production.

To learn more about complete consolidation, register for our live webinar, “After the VMware Exit—How to Consolidate, Repatriate, and Prepare for AI”

The Requirement: Universal Path + Destination

Consolidation only succeeds when both requirements are met: the path to move workloads and the destination where they land. One without the other leaves IT stuck with the same problems under different branding.

Cirrus Data provides the path. Its block-level migration runs while production stays online. Intelligent QoS manages I/O so applications remain responsive during synchronization. Cutovers take minutes, not hours, making migrations fit inside standard change windows. With MigrateOps, migrations become recipes—repeatable, auditable, and consistent across hundreds of workloads. Migration risk, once the barrier to change, is removed.

VergeOS provides the destination. It is a single operating system that unifies virtualization, storage, networking, GPU sharing, backup, and disaster recovery. VergeOS runs on standard x86 servers and uses per-server licensing, so enterprises can extend hardware life and deploy large hosts without penalty. Most importantly, VergeOS treats AI as a core workload. GPU pooling, high-throughput storage, and predictable networking are built in, preventing the creation of yet another silo.

Together, Cirrus Data and VergeOS address both sides of the consolidation equation. Cirrus Data clears the way out of sprawl. VergeOS delivers a consistent operating model across the data center, edge, ROBO, and venues. Unlike other platforms that claim unification, VergeOS is built on a single code base—a distinction that makes a difference when stability and scale matter.

Why a Single Code Base Matters

Not every platform that calls itself “unified” deserves the label. Most competitors stitch together a collection of modules written by separate development teams, often acquired through M&A, and then shoehorn them into a common management GUI. The interface hides the seams but does not remove them. Each module carries its own dependencies, update cycles, and failure modes. When workloads push the system, those seams show up in outages, support escalations, and stalled upgrades.

A true universal infrastructure operating system is different. Built on a single code base, VergeOS delivers compute, storage, networking, GPU support, backup, and disaster recovery through the same logic and policy framework. Features work together because they were designed together. One update applies across the platform. One roadmap drives progress. One support model resolves issues without finger-pointing.

The difference matters. Layered modules behind a GUI add fragility that IT pays for later. A single code base gives enterprises confidence that every workload—traditional applications, cloud-repatriated systems, and private AI—runs on the same consistent foundation. Anything less is not consolidation. It is simply sprawl wearing a new logo.

Conclusion

The VMware exit is not just a licensing shift. It is the compelling event that enterprises need, to confront the cost and complexity created by years of tactical decisions. Treating it as a hypervisor swap misses the point. Replacing VMware with another logo keeps the same fragmentation in place and leaves the enterprise just as unprepared for AI, cloud repatriation, and future workloads.

The right move after the VMware exit is complete consolidation. That requires both a universal migration path and a universal infrastructure operating system. Cirrus Data provides the path, with live block-level migration, automation through MigrateOps, and cutovers measured in minutes. VergeOS provides the destination, with a single code base that unifies compute, storage, networking, GPU sharing, backup, and disaster recovery. Together, they address the two most critical questions following the VMware exit: how to escape sprawl and where to land once you do.

This is not the time to patch or postpone. Enterprises that seize the moment can consolidate once, extend hardware life, and prepare their infrastructure for AI without creating new silos. Enterprises that miss it will be back in the same place in three years—only weaker and even less ready. The choice is clear: consolidate now with Cirrus Data and VergeOS, or carry the weight of sprawl into the future.

Filed Under: VMwareExit Tagged With: , ,

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In 2026, IT professionals face a double infrastructure disruption problem that threatens to overwhelm budgets and complicate long-term planning. Server virtualization is undergoing a dramatic change, driven by Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware and the expiration of thousands of VMware contracts within the year. At the same time, the VDI market is unsettled by rising costs and vendor reshuffling.

This is not the time for simple hypervisor swaps or VDI broker switches. Treating each disruption as an isolated project preserves the fragmentation that created today’s challenges. There is a unique opportunity to modernize infrastructure architecture as a whole—reducing cost, simplifying management, and preparing for future workloads like private AI.

Infrastructure Disruption One: Broadcom’s Strategic Customer Abandonment

Broadcom’s VMware strategy is not only about higher prices. It actually represents a deliberate narrowing of focus to large enterprises. CEO Hock Tan first pointed to “upselling VMware’s largest 2,000 customers,” later revised to just 500 top accounts served directly. Mid-market organizations are left with dramatically higher costs or the need to find alternatives.

double infrastructure disruption

The numbers tell the story of the first part of the infrastructure disruption problem. Surveys show 98% of VMware customers are exploring alternatives. Forty-eight percent report costs doubling, 30% see costs quadrupling, and 15% have faced tenfold increases (Heise). New licensing rules add a 72-core minimum order requirement and a 20% penalty for late renewals. For many, what was once 15–20% of the IT budget now consumes 40–60%.

This is not vendor greed; it is market repositioning. For organizations outside Broadcom’s target segment, it is the right moment to rethink architecture rather than pour more money into a fragmented model.

Infrastructure Disruption Two: VDI Market Uncertainty

infrastructure disruption

Desktop delivery is the second part of the infrastructure disruption problem. It is in parallel turmoil. VMware Horizon’s transfer to Omnissa creates questions about support and product direction. Citrix customers face rising prices and growing complexity, often tied to Windows Server back ends.

The pattern is clear. Per-user licensing penalizes growth. Feature bloat drives expensive add-ons. Multiple management consoles increase operational overhead. What was meant to simplify end-user computing has become harder to maintain than the desktops it replaced.

Why an Infrastructure-Wide Vision is Essential

Most IT teams approach these problems in silos. The VMware group looks at hypervisor replacements. The VDI team investigates alternative brokers. The storage team negotiates a SAN refresh. Each makes the best choice within its domain, but the organization still carries multiple licensing models, management planes, and support contracts.

This is the fragmentation tax. It shows up as duplicated labor, integration overhead, and troubleshooting inefficiency. Studies suggest it adds 35–50% to operational costs as compared to unified platforms.

An infrastructure-wide modernization strategy removes that tax while solving the double infrastructure disruption challenges. Unified platforms combine server virtualization, storage, networking, and desktop delivery into a single architecture. Costs drop because organizations are not paying four or five vendors. Labor drops because teams manage one system. Performance improves because the environment is built to work as a whole, not stitched together after the fact.

These benefits compound. By combining VMware licensing savings with simpler VDI economics and reduced operational overhead, IT can build a stronger case for modernization. Future workloads, such as private AI, can run on the same architecture without creating a separate silo. Even if budget cycles don’t align perfectly, taking a big-picture view of infrastructure and incorporating components as renewals and refreshes occur, creates a rare opportunity to present modernization as a single project with a clear ROI.

Even further Infrastructure Disruption: Hardware Deprecation

The legacy licensing models that contribute to the double infrastructure disruption problem also drive unnecessary hardware refresh cycles. Perfectly functional servers are marked “unsupported” to push new purchases or reduce testing costs. Organizations waste capital and create e-waste when older systems could continue to serve production workloads.

Modern ultraconverged platforms take the opposite approach. They run on standard x86 hardware without restrictive hardware compatibility lists. Servers remain in service as long as they meet performance needs. Refreshes happen on IT’s schedule, not the vendor’s. Extending server life by even two years can defer or eliminate $25,000–100,000 in capital costs per 50 users per year.

Why Partners Must Act Now

For VARs, MSPs, and CSPs, the double disruption presents an opportunity to transition from transactional product swaps to strategic infrastructure modernization. Many partners will take the easy route and replace whatever component is failing. That path keeps costs high and complexity intact.

The better path is to guide customers toward a unified infrastructure. Partners who take this approach, deliver measurable savings, protect hardware investments, and become trusted advisors. The result is repeat business and recurring revenue.

Join our exclusive webinar with Inuvika and Ethos Technology to learn how to position unified infrastructure solutions that solve both VMware licensing and VDI complexity simultaneously. This session provides specific strategies for guiding customers toward architectural modernization rather than component-level replacement. Register here.

The VergeIO and Inuvika Answer

VergeIO delivers ultraconverged infrastructure that integrates server virtualization, enterprise-class storage, networking, and AI in a single code base. Licensing is per server, avoiding Broadcom’s per-core penalties. The platform runs on standard x86 hardware, protecting existing investments and extending hardware life. As end-users become dependent on their virtual desktop instances, VergeOS provides the resilience needed to meet user expectations.

Inuvika’s Linux-based VDI works perfectly within this environment. It eliminates the need for Windows Server back ends and simplifies desktop and application delivery. Together, VergeIO and Inuvika provide coordinated support, predictable pricing, and an end to vendor finger-pointing.

The ROI on an Infrastructure-Wide Vision

Focusing on traditional infrastructure updates maintains operational complexity while changing vendors. Innovative infrastructure teams use this disruption to implement unified platforms that solve multiple problems simultaneously. Based on our interviews, VergeIO customers see significant annual savings using this approach:

Traditional vs. Modern Infrastructure Economics (per 500 users):

Cost CategoryFragmented StackUnified PlatformAnnual Savings
Software Costs$90,000-120,000$40,000-60,000$50,000-60,000
IT Labor20-30 hours monthly5-8 hours monthly$25,000-40,000
Hardware RefreshRequired every 3-4 yearsExtended 5-7 years$37,500-75,000
Total Annual Savings$112,500-175,000

Large enterprises report $500,000-2,000,000 annual savings moving from fragmented to integrated platforms, while avoiding strategic risk from vendors that explicitly deprioritize their market segment. Hardware investment protection adds another layer of savings, with organizations typically deferring $25,000-100,000 in capital expenditures per 50 servers by extending hardware lifecycles based on performance needs rather than vendor compatibility requirements.

Real-World Elimination of the Double Infrastructure Disruption Problem

CCSI, a cloud service provider, solved its double infrastructure disruption problem by implementing VergeIO’s ultraconverged infrastructure with Inuvika’s VDI platform. They achieved:

  • 80% reduction in infrastructure costs compared to the VMware stack
  • 3-day migration completion vs. 6-month VMware refresh timeline
  • Single vendor relationship replacing five separate support contracts
  • Simplified operations without SAN dependencies or complex networking

“The integrated approach eliminated the vendor finger-pointing we experienced with our previous fragmented infrastructure,” reports CCSI leadership. “When issues arise, we have single-point accountability instead of coordination between multiple vendors.”

The Wait-and-See Strategy is Over

Many IT leaders renewed short-term agreements after Broadcom’s acquisition, hoping for stability. That stability has not arrived. Renewal mechanics now dictate timing and cost. Terms are tighter, penalties higher, and deadlines closer.

The wait-and-see strategy is no longer neutral. The impending double infrastructure disruption problem makes waiting a penalty. The time to modernize is now. Contact VergeIO for a technical whiteboard session to explore how VergeIO with Inuvika can provide a comprehensive solution to the double infrastructure disruption problem.

Filed Under: VDI Tagged With: , ,

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upgrade Edge data protection

The Broadcom acquisition of VMware is prompting IT leaders to reassess remote deployments, making it an ideal time to upgrade Edge data protection. The Edge encompasses Remote Office Branch Offices (ROBO), Venues in the entertainment industry, and true Edge sites for data collection.

Organizations with any or all of these location types adopted VMware for server consolidation, not resilience. A few small servers could run all workloads and remain online without the cloud or core, providing local processing and independence in the event of a WAN failure.

Now the economics and packaging of VMware have changed, but exiting VMware should be more than a hypervisor swap. It’s a chance to upgrade edge VMware protection and DR.

upgrade Edge data protection

Doing so can reduce licensing and hardware costs, eliminate redundant backup appliances, and enhance recovery speed after outages or accidental deletions. It also prepares IT for new edge use cases, such as AI inference, where local processing demands stronger resilience and faster recovery. If you are an IT professional with multiple sites, download our comprehensive guide to a VMware exit for multi-site organizations.

The Old Data Protection Model

Backup dependency
VMware offered rudimentary edge protection. Customers relied on third-party backup appliances or agents, each with extra licensing, hardware, and management overhead. This added cost and complexity for ROBO and venue sites which typically have little or no IT staff. Backup servers and storage arrays also consumed precious rack space that edge and ROBO locations rarely had. This is why it is time to upgrade Edge data protection.

Replication challenges
Replication was never native. Organizations turned to SRM or external tools, which were complex, expensive, and impractical for small sites. Many locations simply went unprotected.

Snapshot limitations
VMware snapshots were tied to VMFS or vSAN, resulting in degraded performance and increased capacity consumption. Many customers avoided them or used them as a temporary staging copy for backup before deleting. VMware’s own documentation warns that snapshots should not be considered a form of protection.

Recovery gaps
Recovering workloads was a complex process that required the use of runbooks. These were manually created, brittle, and often untested until a crisis. Testing DR was especially hard for venues and edge sites with limited or no maintenance windows. The first “test” was usually a real outage, with predictable failures.

Scale mismatch
VMware’s protection stack was designed for four to sixteen node clusters, not two- or three-node sites. vSAN requires at least three nodes or two plus a witness, adding cost and complexity. VxRail requires four or five nodes—well beyond the needs and budgets of edge or ROBO locations.

Why VMware Data Protection Falls Short

VMware’s protection model was never designed for distributed sites. It layered point products on top of the hypervisor and left IT to tie them together, resulting in tool sprawl, increased overhead, and higher costs—another reason why it’s time to upgrade Edge data protection.

Tool sprawl
Even with central management, IT had to juggle separate logins, passwords, and consoles across dozens or hundreds of sites. Context switching became exponential overhead.

Fragile protection
RPOs were measured in hours or days, with even longer RTOs. Every restore relied on backup servers and brittle runbooks. Secondary backup steps added delays and new failure points.

No cyber recovery
VMware snapshots—whether standard or vSAN—were not immutable, and replicas usually lived in the same location. A ransomware attack or corruption could wipe out both production and “protected” copies.

Inconsistent coverage
Some sites were protected, others were not. It could take weeks to notice, and even longer to diagnose. Without a shared telemetry stream, IT had to log in and out of multiple systems, making correlation across sites nearly impossible.

Testing and validation gap
DR testing was rare. Venues and edge sites have little or no downtime, so runbooks went untested. The first recovery attempt usually came during an outage, with poor results.

The Modern Model: Integrated Data Protection

upgrade Edge data protection

VergeOS eliminates the sprawl of point products by integrating protection directly into the same stack that delivers virtualization and storage. This changes protection from an add-on to a native capability and is clearly a way to upgrade Edge data protection.

Site virtualization
VMware virtualized servers. VergeOS virtualizes entire sites. Its Virtual Data Center (VDC) technology captures workloads, storage, and networking as one logical entity. A VDC can be migrated to the core, another site, or a new facility, enabling protection and mobility beyond VM portability. It also allows patch testing by cloning an entire site into a safe environment for updates and validation before production.

Built-in snapshots
Snapshots in VergeOS are instant, immutable, and policy-driven. They can be taken at the site, VDC, or VM level, with recovery just as granular. They impose no performance hit and avoid capacity sprawl, so they can be kept long enough to provide real protection.

Native replication
Replication is built in. It is lightweight, policy-based, and supports site-to-site, hub-and-spoke, or paired topologies—removing the need for SRM or third-party tools. Policies can be defined once and applied everywhere. Combined with VDC virtualization, recovery works the first time, bringing an entire site back online in a few clicks.

Policy-driven tiers
Different site types can be assigned different protection profiles. A ROBO might use nightly replication, a venue may require aggressive POS and video protection, and edge sites can run short-interval snapshots. Policies are defined centrally and enforced locally.

Cyber recovery isolation
VergeOS snapshots are read-only, and replicas can live in independent locations, giving IT true isolation. Clean copies can be launched for testing without impacting production, making cyber recovery a routine process.

Centralized fleet management
Policies, snapshots, replication, and compliance are visible in a single console. Upgrades can be staged regionally and rolled out live, even across hundreds of sites.

AI-aware protection
With VergeIQ GPU workloads at the edge can be protected just like VMs. VergeOS snapshots and replication cover models, embeddings, and inference data, allowing rollbacks, recovery, or moves alongside the rest of the site.

VMware vs. VergeOS Data Protection

CapabilityVMware / Legacy ApproachVergeOS Integrated Model
SnapshotsTied to vSAN/VMFS, performance hitInstant, immutable, no impact
ReplicationSRM or 3rd party, costly/complexNative, lightweight, policy-driven
BackupRequires separate appliancesBuilt-in to core platform
RecoveryManual runbooks, brittleConsistent object recovery, few clicks
Cyber RecoveryNot immutable, no isolationImmutable snapshots, isolated replicas
Fleet ManagementMany consoles, siloed telemetryOne pane across all sites

Edge Data Protection’s Impact on the Core

upgrade Edge data protection

Running the same software stack at the edge and in the core delivers consistency VMware never offered. VergeOS runs everywhere, so IT doesn’t need different tools for small sites and large clusters. Operations are predictable, upgrades are faster, and risk is reduced.

Replication from the edge to the core is straightforward. Sites arrive as complete Virtual Data Centers, making recovery as simple as starting a consistent object instead of piecing workloads together.

The core can host tenants by geography or business unit, define protection policies once, and push them everywhere. Fleet-level upgrades and policies can be staged regionally and applied without downtime.

Observability is unified. VergeOS provides a single telemetry stream, eliminating the need to chase logs across multiple products. IT sees protection status and compliance in one console.

The core becomes the foundation for AI. Models can be trained centrally, distributed to sites, and protected with the same snapshots and replication used for VMs.

With VergeOS, the edge and core operate as one system, running the same software with the same protection capabilities.

Conclusion

The Broadcom acquisition of VMware forces a choice. IT can either repeat the old model with another hypervisor and bolt-on tools, or take the opportunity to build something better.

Exiting VMware should not be a lateral move. It should be an upgrade. By integrating snapshots, replication, site virtualization, and fleet visibility, VergeOS replaces fragile point products with one platform. Protection becomes routine, recovery becomes reliable, and AI readiness is built in.

The VMware exit is more than just a cost issue—it is the chance to reset edge data protection and lay the foundation for the next decade.

Filed Under: Edge Computing Tagged With: , , ,

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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.

Topgolf is Choosing VergeOS

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.

Topgolf is choosing VergeOS

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.

Filed Under: VMwareExit Tagged With: , ,