What is network management?

As automation is an evolution of management, so too is network automation an evolution of network management. Network management systems now rely on automation to manage enterprise network resources and services.   

The difference between network management and network automation lies in the (highly subjective) differences between management and automation. Since there’s no such thing as seamless automation, there’s also no objective point at which management becomes automation. At some point, the human effort required to manage a set of tasks is significantly less than before—this is when management might now be described as automation. Automating network resource and management services allows network operations teams to become more flexible and better support modern business demands.