Tottenham Hotspur cuts virtualization costs by more than 85% after VMware switch

Tottenham Hotspur has phased out VMware at its stadium and moved to HPE Morpheus VM Essentials, cutting virtualization costs by more than 85%.

Chief technology officer Rob Pickering linked the commercial changes to Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. He said the saving was a “significant amount” and “north of 85%.” Tottenham did not disclose the prices it paid for its previous VMware products or its new systems.

The migration formed part of a broader data center and networking refresh. Tottenham is also moving its server, storage, and networking infrastructure to HPE. The club said that combining virtualization, infrastructure, and automation in one operational stack offered more value than simply changing virtualization vendors to reduce costs.

HPE recently announced a year of free HPE Morpheus VM Essentials for customers switching from VMware. The company also said its Zerto migration software would be available as part of a $1 package. It is unclear whether Tottenham Hotspur used either offer.

The stadium has also reportedly begun a network upgrade toward Wi-Fi 7 and HPE Aruba Central. The site has around 20,000 network access points and connections. Tesco has separately confirmed plans to drop 40,000 VMware licenses.