Cisco Networking Simplified, Second Edition

Chapter . Control Plane

When Good Networks Go Bad

One of the most basic and critical functions of the network is to provide a way for network administrators to provision and maintain the network devices themselves. Functions that need to be performed include establishing new connections, updating the network topology, monitoring network throughput and performance, and enforcing security and service policies. All this (and more) is performed by the control plane in a network device. The control plane is responsible for providing an interface to the network administrator, receiving commands, acting on them, and providing response.

When networks are functioning optimally, the control plane may be used only for monitoring to make sure that the network ...