Configuring, maintaining and changing WAN infrastructure can be a nightmare given the distributed nature of the beast and all the remote touch points, but emerging Software Defined Networking (SDN) tools promise to make these operations more efficient.

Usually touted as a data center tool, SDN can be used to automate and manage WAN operations, says Zeus Kerravala, principal of ZK Research. WAN issues are hard to address because of the dispersed nature of the resources, he says. “There’s no perfect way of making changes to the WAN,” but “SDN brings automation and orchestration from a centralized location and allows you to react faster.”

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