Systems and methods for analyzing a root cause of issues in a network, such as an optical communication network, are provided. A method, according to one implementation, includes the steps of deriving symptoms indicative of issues in a network by utilizing performance data obtained from network elements in the network and storing the derived symptoms in a database. The method also includes the step of obtaining diagnostics from the network elements. Also, the method may include utilizing the database to compute distances between the derived symptoms and each of the diagnostics, whereby the computed distances may be configured to correspond to dissimilarities between the derived symptoms and the diagnostics. The distances are computed based on machine learning models, user feedback, and analytical functions. Also, the method includes analyzing a root cause of the derived symptoms based on a lowest distance selected from the computed distances.