A method, comprising: establishing software defined network, SDN, awareness for a data replication application, wherein the establishing comprises creating a plurality of source filers, wherein a filer is a function for managing data replication activities including transmitting and receiving replication data, assigning an Internet Protocol, IP, address to each source filer, creating one or more replication relationships for each source filer and publishing a replication policy for each source filer, wherein each replication relationship includes a Service Level Agreement, SLA, and wherein the SLA includes a Recovery Point Objective, RPO, and a Recovery Time Objective, RTO; establishing data replication awareness for a SDN controller; creating a plurality of logical networks based on a plurality of replication operating modes defined by the data replication application, wherein each logical network is associated with a corresponding replication policy for a corresponding source filer and each logical network is connected to the corresponding source filer through a logical interface, and wherein the plurality of replication operating modes include at least one of: a synchronous mode, wherein the synchronous mode includes an RPO defined at less than a minute; and a semi-synchronous mode, wherein the semi-synchronous mode includes an RPO defined in one or more minutes; managing, by the SDN controller, the plurality of logical networks in a wide area network, WAN, between each of the plurality of source filers and each of a plurality of destination filers for each of a plurality of data types; and transmitting replication data between each of the plurality of source filers and each of the plurality of destination filers using each of the plurality of logical networks. establishing software defined network, SDN, awareness for a data replication application, wherein the establishing comprises creating a plurality of source filers, wherein a filer is a function for managing data replication activities including transmitting and receiving replication data, assigning an Internet Protocol, IP, address to each source filer, creating one or more replication relationships for each source filer and publishing a replication policy for each source filer, wherein each replication relationship includes a Service Level Agreement, SLA, and wherein the SLA includes a Recovery Point Objective, RPO, and a Recovery Time Objective, RTO; establishing data replication awareness for a SDN controller; creating a plurality of logical networks based on a plurality of replication operating modes defined by the data replication application, wherein each logical network is associated with a corresponding replication policy for a corresponding source filer and each logical network is connected to the corresponding source filer through a logical interface, and wherein the plurality of replication operating modes include at least one of: a synchronous mode, wherein the synchronous mode includes an RPO defined at less than a minute; and a semi-synchronous mode, wherein the semi-synchronous mode includes an RPO defined in one or more minutes; a synchronous mode, wherein the synchronous mode includes an RPO defined at less than a minute; and a semi-synchronous mode, wherein the semi-synchronous mode includes an RPO defined in one or more minutes; managing, by the SDN controller, the plurality of logical networks in a wide area network, WAN, between each of the plurality of source filers and each of a plurality of destination filers for each of a plurality of data types; and transmitting replication data between each of the plurality of source filers and each of the plurality of destination filers using each of the plurality of logical networks.