Software-defined networking (SDN) is a recent development in the area of communication networks with tremendous support by key players building the next generation of computer hardware and software. This development will have significant impact on how communication middleware---in particular, future distributed event-based systems---can be designed. While currently the communication middleware has no possibility to directly influence the properties of its underlying communication channels on the network layer, SDN enables communication middleware to control and flexibly adapt the forwarding of communication flows in the underlying network. In addition to the immediate implication to local area networks such as data center networks, campus networks, or company networks, novel trends like network virtualization may even support Internet-wide distributed applications to benefit from SDN in the future. This paper gives an introduction on how to utilize SDN-concepts for improving the performance of event-based middleware and to test their behavior.