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Difficulty: MediumSeparation of Control Plane and Data Plane

A network administrator is evaluating how network operations are partitioned between functional planes in a controller-based architecture. Which task is performed exclusively within the control plane?

  1. Building the routing table and calculating optimal topology paths via dynamic routing protocolsAnswer
  2. B
    Matching incoming packet destination IP addresses against the Forwarding Information Base (FIB) in ASIC hardware
  3. C
    Encapsulating ethernet frames with 802.1Q VLAN headers prior to trunk transmission
  4. D
    Filtering transient transit traffic based on Access Control List (ACL) rules using TCAM memory

Answer

Building the routing table and calculating optimal topology paths via dynamic routing protocols is performed exclusively within the control plane.
The control plane is responsible for the network's brain and decision-making processes. This includes running routing protocol daemons, exchanging protocol messages, computing optimal paths, and maintaining the Routing Information Base (RIB). Once computed, these decision tables are pushed down to the data plane.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the primary responsibility of the control plane versus the data plane.
The control plane makes decisions about where traffic should be sent, whereas the data plane carries out the actual forwarding of transit traffic.
Control plane processes run protocol engines (like OSPF, BGP, or EIGRP) to construct network intelligence and topology maps.
2
Evaluate each function to determine whether it is intelligent network control or hardware forwarding.
Constructing the Routing Information Base (RIB) requires CPU computation and path calculation (control plane), whereas FIB lookups, packet header modifications, VLAN tagging, and TCAM filtering are performed by data plane ASICs.
Data plane actions are high-speed per-packet handling tasks, while control plane actions involve signaling, routing state compilation, and path determination.

Key Concept

Separation of Control Plane and Data Plane
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Separation of Control Plane and Data Plane

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