There is described a method for distributing the execution of a management application responsible for performing a management operation upon a network element of a communication network. The communication network comprises a plurality of network elements, and the network element comprises a hardware module. The method comprises: determining whether calculation resources are available at the hardware module for executing the management application; in the affirmative, using the calculation resources for executing the management application; when the calculation resources become unavailable, determining whether further calculation resources are available in the communication network to continue execution of the management application; and in the affirmative, continuing execution of the management application by using the further calculation resources.