Customer Success Story
AI-driven, zero trust network yields business agility for AmeriTrust
AmeriTrust, a specialty insurance commercial underwriter and administration services company, looked to digital transformation to fuel growth. It embarked on an ambitious effort to streamline IT operations, strengthen cybersecurity, and drive business success in an unpredictable and changing world.
Overview
| Company | AmeriTrust |
| Industry | Financial Services |
| Products used | Wireless Access Points, Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance, Wired Assurance, Session Smart Router, SRX Series, Juniper Apstra, QFX Series, MX Series |
| Region | Americas |
Deliver
Exceptional user and device experiences from campus to core
Meet
Stringent performance, security, and availability requirements with application-aware fabric
Secure
Applications with a zero trust data center architecture
Simplify
Design, deployment, and operations of data center network
IT simplification lays foundation for growth
“We set objectives and key results around IT modernization from the data center to the office,” says Brent Riley, senior vice president of IT at AmeriTrust. “We wanted to simplify operations and put security first and foremost by following a zero trust framework.”
A zero trust framework can help AmeriTrust protect against cyberattacks and uphold data privacy mandates as it provides commercial, group health, specialty, and personal insurance services to customers.
A threat-aware network is essential to sustain a work-from-anywhere environment, which the company views as a strategic advantage in a competitive job market. “Hybrid work allows us to recruit talent nationwide,” says Riley.
As AmeriTrust set a course to IT modernization, it looked to AI and automation to simplify network operations and meet security objectives.
“We use AI in other areas of our business, and we wanted to apply AI to our infrastructure as we aim to deliver more value and accelerate time to market,” says Brennen Erickson, assistant vice president of enterprise architecture at AmeriTrust.
React faster and make better decisions with AIOps
AmeriTrust deployed a secure, AI-driven network from Juniper for its offices, data centers, and enterprise WAN, driving operational simplicity and strengthening security.
AmeriTrust took its enterprise WAN to the next level with the Juniper Session Smart Router for an application-aware network fabric that meets its performance, security, and availability requirements. It can deliver an optimized, secure user experience with zero trust access control and segmentation.
Juniper next-generation firewalls (NGFW) provide visibility, control, and prevention at the network edge. Combined with behavior and real-time threat detection, Juniper NGFW safeguards AmeriTrust’s users, applications, and devices.
AmeriTrust shifted to an IP fabric and EVPN-VXLAN in its data centers to provide employees with anytime, anywhere access to applications and data. Juniper Apstra intent-based networking software is key to automate and continuously validate the network design, reduce deployment time, and resolve problems faster.
Juniper Wired and Wireless Access solution, driven by Mist AI™, delivers predictable, reliable, and measurable connectivity at AmeriTrust’s offices. Juniper cloud services, including Wi-Fi Assurance, Wired Assurance, and Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, provide clear visibility into the user experience and speed troubleshooting when issues arise.
Sustainable growth in a changing world
“We’re laying a solid foundation for improved resiliency and customer experiences,” says Erickson.
Juniper’s AI-driven automation and assurance capabilities support efficient and flexible IT service delivery. “Having Mist AI and automation in our environment helps us react more quickly, make better decisions, and speed service delivery to our business stakeholders,” says Erickson.
AIOps frees up IT resources for strategic initiatives. “With the visibility of Mist AI, we can better prioritize our work and work at a faster cadence,” says Riley.
“Simplifying our infrastructure also makes it easier to integrate future mergers and acquisitions,” says Erickson.
Network modernization with Juniper brings agility for future unknowns, with the first test coming soon. In May 2022, AF Group, a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield Michigan, announced plans to acquire AmeriTrust upon fulfillment of certain conditions and regulatory approvals.
The Products
Juniper is leading the convergence of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth® LE, and IoT with our enterprise-grade Access Points. The Juniper Access Points work in conjunction with the Juniper Mist Cloud Architecture and Mist AI to collect and analyze metadata in near real-time from all wireless clients.
Wireless (Wi-Fi) Assurance
Driven by Mist AI and machine learning, the Juniper Mist Wireless Assurance cloud service automates troubleshooting and operations, making wireless networks predictable, reliable, and measurable while providing near-real-time visibility into user service levels.
Wired Assurance
The Juniper Mist Wired Assurance service brings Mist AI to access-layer switching. It sets a new network management standard with AI-native operations and automation, improving the experiences of devices connected to resources through Juniper EX Series Switches.
Marvis VNA
Marvis, the first AI-Native virtual network assistant, optimizes user and operator experiences with proactive actions and self-driving network operations. A natural language conversational interface provides simple and seamless interactions, making Marvis an integrated member of any IT team.
Session Smart Router
Our software-defined router provides a flexible, application-aware network fabric that meets stringent enterprise performance, security, and availability requirements. Its Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) policy and URL filtering allow it to selectively enforce various attack detection and prevention techniques on network traffic.
Protect your network edge, data center, and cloud-based applications with Juniper next-generation physical, virtual, and containerized firewalls, all managed via Juniper Security Director Cloud.
Juniper Apstra
Intent-based networking software automates the entire network life cycle—from design through everyday operations—across multivendor data centers with continuous validation, powerful analytics, and root cause identification to assure reliability.
QFX network switches deliver industry-leading throughput and scalability, a comprehensive routing stack, the open programmability of Junos OS, and the broadest set of EVPN-VXLAN and IP fabric capabilities. Juniper offers a wide range of switches for data center spine and leaf switches, campus distribution and core, or data center gateway and interconnect.
With a robust portfolio of SDN-enabled routers, the MX Series provides industry-leading system capacity, density, security, and performance with unparalleled longevity.
Juniper global services helps your organization align AI with people, process, and technology to accelerate the time to value for your modern infrastructure.
Published September 2022