The following list includes a few of the benefits of implementing traffic engineering (TE) by using software-defined networking (SDN) in a service provider network:
- Ability to obtain a centralized view of the entire TE tunnel structure, which makes it possible to place TE tunnels optimally rather than on the basis of a routing decision made by each router
- Possibility of viewing a clear graphical representation of the TE tunnel structure in the network
- Possibility to introduce additional criteria for TE tunnel placements---for example, path cost optimized, delay optimized, and monetary cost optimized
- Possibility to introduce many additional TE tunnel services or features; for example:
- Bandwidth calendaring (that is, you can reserve tunnel bandwidth in advance for a specific period of time)
- Diverse paths (to ensure that Stream Control Transmission Protocol [SCTP] multihoming paths are completely diverse)