Driven by the need for automation and lowering capex, SDN usage by carriers continues to march forward, according to a recent IHS Markit survey.

According to a survey of 23 service providers from around the globe, 78% of the respondents had deployed or were evaluating software-defined networking (SDN) by the end of last year. That number jumps to 87% by the end of this year as more service providers move out of proof-of-concept trials and into real-world deployments.

Automation and a reduction in capex and opex were among the top goals listed by the service providers in the survey for their SDN deployments. By the end of this year, 74% of the respondents will use SDN to automate the delivery of new services while 65% will use it for operations and management.