An approach to network management that decouples control of information flow from the hardware and gives it to a software controller. Software-Defined Network (SDN) allows for fewer data to travel wirelessly, making it a strategy for IoT networks services by abstracting lower-level functionality.

SDN allows for less data to travel wirelessly, making it a potential strategy for IoT networks as well as administrators to manage network services by abstracting lower level functionality, allowing network services to be specified without coupling these specifications to network interfaces. Software-defined networking (SDN) is an umbrella term encompassing several kinds of network technology aimed at making the network as agile and flexible as the virtualized server and storage infrastructure of the modern data center. The goal of SDN is to allow network engineers and administrators to respond quickly to changing business requirements. In a software-defined network, a network administrator can shape traffic from a centralized control console without having to touch individual switches, and can deliver services to wherever they are needed in the network, without regard to what specific devices a server or other device is connected to. The key technologies are functional separation, network virtualization and automation through programmability.