In today’s telecom market, global carriers are innovating at the speed of light and operating ever-growing and complex networks to satisfy the insatiable demand for bandwidth. Automation and SDN seem to be the answer to most of these challenges. In this presentation we will discuss the benefits of automation and software on global networks, and review best practices and lessons learned at the Tier 1 Global IP Network of NTT, one of the largest IP backbones in the world.