A processing system may generate segments of network infrastructure items deployed in a communication network, each segment comprising network infrastructure items grouped in accordance with segment filters and a segment size sparsity threshold, and identify anomalous segments comprising at least a subset of the segments having anomalies of an anomaly type regarding a performance indicator. The processing system may next determine segments from the subset that are defined by sets of segment filter values that are different for less than a threshold number of segment filters, merge the segments from the subset that are different for less than the threshold number to create at least one aggregate segment, and generate a ranking of the subset having the anomalies of the anomaly type, wherein the ranking includes the at least one aggregate segment. The processing system may then perform at least one action in the communication network responsive to the ranking.