Networking Devices and the three planes (Control, Data and Management)

Control-plane: This is where routing decisions (layer 2 and 3) and neighbor information is distributed for example OSPF, EIGRP and CDP.

 Data-plane: This is where data such as routing tables, arp caches, topology databases etc. This is the space where actions are carried out by the control-plane.

Management-plane: This is where all of the management traffic occurs, like SNMP, SSH, TELNET etc.