The introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) and massive machine-type communications has implied an increase in network size and complexity. In particular, there is already a huge number of IoT devices in the market in various sectors, such as smart agriculture, smart city, smart home, smart transportation, etc. The IoT interconnectivity technologies are also increasing. Therefore, these are increasingly overwhelming the efforts of network administrators as they try to design, reconfigure and manage such networks. Relying on humans to manage such complex and dynamic networks is becoming unsustainable. Network automation promises to reduce the cost of administration and maintenance of network infrastructure, by offering networks the capability to manage themselves. Network automation is the ability of the network to manage itself. Various standardization organizations are taking the initiative in introducing network automation, such as European Telecommunication Standardization Institute (ETSI). ETSI is leading the standardization activities for network automation. It has provided different versions of reference architecture called generic autonomic network architecture (GANA), which describes a four-level abstraction for network-management decision elements (DEs), protocol level, function level, node level, and network level. In this article, we review and survey the existing works before and after the introduction of software-defined networking (SDN) and network-function-virtualization (NFV). We relate the main trending paradigms being followed, such as SDN, NFV, machine learning (ML), microservices, multiagent system (MAS), containerization, and cloudification, as a pivotal enabler of full network automation. We also discuss the autonomic architectures proposed in the literature. Finally, we presented possible future research directions and challenges that need to be tackled to progress in achieving full network automation.

中文翻译：

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物联网网络自动化的理论讨论和调查：挑战与机遇


物联网 (IoT) 和大规模机器类型通信的引入意味着网络规模和复杂性的增加。尤其是智慧农业、智慧城市、智能家居、智慧交通等各个领域市场上已经有大量的物联网设备，物联网互联技术也在不断增加。因此，当网络管理员尝试设计、重新配置和管理此类网络时，这些问题越来越难以承受。依靠人类来管理如此复杂和动态的网络正在变得不可持续。网络自动化有望通过为网络提供自我管理的能力来降低网络基础设施的管理和维护成本。网络自动化是网络自我管理的能力。各种标准化组织正在主动引入网络自动化，例如欧洲电信标准化协会（ETSI）。 ETSI 正在领导网络自动化的标准化活动。它提供了不同版本的参考架构，称为通用自主网络架构（GANA），它描述了网络管理决策元素（DE）的四层抽象：协议层、功能层、节点层和网络层。在本文中，我们回顾和调查了软件定义网络（SDN）和网络功能虚拟化（NFV）引入前后的现有工作。我们将 SDN、NFV、机器学习 (ML)、微服务、多代理系统 (MAS)、容器化和云化等主要趋势范例联系起来，作为全面网络自动化的关键推动者。 我们还讨论了文献中提出的自主架构。最后，我们提出了未来可能的研究方向和需要解决的挑战，以实现全面的网络自动化。