Control Plane vs Data Plane

* Operating a packet-switches network involves handling 2 kinds of packets

===> Conrol & Data

1. Control Plane

- The set of operations for handling control packets

( Control Packets carry the messages meant for directing nodes on how to transfer data packets )

- Usually happens in background, longer timescales, say hundreds of milliseconds(ms) to tens of seconds

- Often requires more complex compatation per operation in order to decide

ex) How to route traffic and how to allocate resources so as to optimize resource sharing and utilization

- Mission (in data communication) : To provide good instructions for the data plane to carry data packets. So, to achieve that, the control plane of intermediary equipment needs to figure out where to route packets ( to links or ports ), which usually requires exchange of control packets and complex route computation

- Need to deal with miscellaneous issues

( error reporting, system cofiguration & management, resource allocation )

2. Data Plane

- The set of operations for handling data packets

( Data Packets enclose the messages that users or applications actually want to transfer )

- Occurs in foreground, shorter timescales, more real-time, say microseconds to nanoseconds.

- It has to process and forward packets on the fly so as to optimize throughputs latency and loss.