Modernizing Amynta Group: From Mainframe to Azure

This premier insurance services company manages over $3 billion in premium and employs 2,000 associates across North America, Europe, and Australia. Amynta Group specializes in Property, Casualty, and Specialty insurance, as well as Warranty and Protection plans for automotive, consumer products, and specialty equipment.

With a new CIO at the helm, Amynta Group initiated a strategic effort to modernize legacy systems and enhance operational agility. Initially, this began with outsourcing and upgrading their mainframe environment, which evolved into a broader cloud and workplace transformation.

Key challenges and opportunities included:

• Aging Mainframe Systems: Amynta’s mainframe platform required modernization to ensure continued reliability and performance.
• Cloud Innovation: As part of a longer-term vision, Amynta explored public cloud—specifically Microsoft Azure—to foster innovation, scalability, and modernization.
• Modern Virtual Desktop: The company was in the design phase of rolling out Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) as a replacement for their existing Citrix VDI, creating an opportunity to enhance remote productivity.
• Operational Maturity: There was a need to advance IT service management (ITSM), strengthen reporting and automation, and support growth through infrastructure modernization.
• Workplace Integration: Amynta aimed to improve collaboration by integrating Microsoft 365 tenants across business units.

Working with Converge Technology Solutions, Amynta selected Ensono for full-service Mainframe hosting. Ensono was chosen for their deep expertise in Mainframe operations, responsiveness, and proactive approach—often identifying gaps the client team hadn’t considered.

Following the successful migration of the Mainframe environment to Ensono’s Downers Grove data center with disaster recovery hosted in Omaha, Amynta invited Ensono to present its broader cloud capabilities. This opened the door to an expanded partnership.

As part of that engagement, Ensono introduced Amynta to its Azure and cloud transformation portfolio. The timing aligned with Amynta’s planning phase for Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). After a successful proof of concept led by Ensono, AVD was rolled out across the organization, replacing Citrix and enabling a more secure, scalable remote desktop experience.

Impressed by the quality of the AVD deployment—particularly Ensono’s secure landing zones—Amynta asked Ensono to take over a broader Azure migration project. Ensono assumed ownership of the planning, remediated the client’s existing Azure subscriptions, and led the execution of a full migration strategy.

As confidence in the partnership deepened, Amynta decided to completely exit its on-premises data centers. Ensono migrated hundreds of Windows and SQL Server workloads into Azure, optimizing the environment by modernizing workloads to platform services where possible.

To accelerate adoption and reduce cost barriers, Ensono also partnered with Microsoft to secure funding for Azure landing zone development and AVD implementation.

In parallel, Ensono supported Amynta’s workplace modernization by helping consolidate and unify Microsoft 365 tenants. Consultants from Ensono also closed skill gaps across Azure and Microsoft 365 operations, advanced ITSM practices, and introduced improved reporting and automation.

The Amynta-Ensono partnership delivered measurable results across infrastructure, operations, and workplace productivity:

• Cloud Migration: Successful migration of workloads to Azure, including hundreds of Windows and SQL Server instances.
• AVD Deployment: Replacement of Citrix with Azure Virtual Desktop, improving security, scalability, and user experience.
• Operational Maturity: Enhanced ITSM practices, reporting, and automation for more efficient operations.
• Workplace Modernization: Unified Microsoft 365 tenant environment, supporting collaboration across business units.
• Cost Management: Ongoing cloud cost optimization strategies to improve resource utilization and reduce overhead.

Ensono continues to support Amynta with a range of initiatives aimed at deepening cloud maturity and modernizing applications:

• Cloud Cost Optimization: Continued efforts to streamline Azure spend and increase ROI.
• Advanced Security: Implementing enhanced security protocols to support compliance and risk reduction.
• Application Modernization: Transitioning legacy applications to cloud-native architectures for performance and agility.
• Microsoft 365 Expansion: Ongoing integration and enhancement of Microsoft 365 capabilities across business units.