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An SDN Controller is a central and vital component of what constitutes an SDN system and is available as a logical or a physical device. An SDN Controller manages and distributes network policies, collects routing and payload information from the Data Plane, and interfaces with user applications in the Management Plane. Each of the planes in an SDN system is composed of multiple logical or physical components. SDN Controllers logically centralize the network intelligence and state in the Control Plane.
The Control Plane is a logical entity that receives instructions or requirements from the SDN Application layer through its northbound interface and relays them to the Data Plane through its southbound interface. The Controller extracts information about the network from the Data Plane and communicates back to the SDN Application Layer with an abstract view of the network, including statistics and events about what is happening.
The Data Plane (or SDN Network Devices) controls the forwarding and data processing capabilities for the network. This includes forwarding and processing of the data path.
The Management Plane (or SDN Applications Layer) is composed of programs that communicate behaviors and needed resources with the SDN Controller via application programming interfaces (APIs). In addition, the applications can build an abstracted view of the network by collecting information from the Controller for decision-making purposes. These applications could include networking management, analytics, or business applications used to run large data centers. For example, an analytics application might be built to recognize suspicious network activity for security purposes. The Management Plane is sometimes also referred to as the Orchestration Layer.