When and why to automate the network

Network automation is increasing all over the network world. However, it's really important to understand when and why to automate your network. For example, if you're an administrator of a few network devices (three or four switches) and you don't execute so many tasks on them regularly, then you might not need full automation for them. Actually, the time needed to write and develop a script and test and troubleshoot it might be greater than the time to do a simple task manually. On the other hand, if you're responsible for a big enterprise network that contains multi-vendor platforms and you always execute repetitive tasks, then it's highly recommended to have a script to automate it.