Abstract: A network system includes a reconfigurable network and a network management system. The network management system can represent the network in the form of a network image. Network image objects, corresponding to network objects, can be selected as copy sources and paste targets. A copy-and-paste operation modifies the network image to indicate a potential modification of the actual network in which the configuration of the network object corresponding to the selected copy source object is applied to the network object corresponding to the selected image object. In addition, the copy-and-paste operation can automatically represent a common connection of a source object input and a target object input to a common data source. Furthermore, the copy-and-paste operation can automatically connect outputsof source and target objects to a comparison function so that the implementation of the copy-and-paste operation on the actual network can be validated.