CEF (Cisco Express Forwarding)

Hello David

Yes, that is the case. The actual definitions of the planes involved really depend upon the context as well as who you ask. Others may have slightly different interpretations and approaches to some nuanced meaning of each term.

However, in the context of CEF and strictly speaking, the control and data planes are the only relevant entities concerning the processing and forwarding of packets.

The management plane is only relevant in the context of operations involving the accessing of devices via SSH, Telnet, SNMP, as well as processes involving logging, software updates, and network monitoring systems. The management plane is typically created as part of a network design, ensuring the appropriate management VLANs, management interfaces, CLI connectivity and NMS services are allcorrectly established.

I hope this has been helpful!

Laz

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