--- title: What is the control plane? | daily.dev description: An explainer on the control plane concept in distributed systems, describing how it orchestrates and directs the data plane across networking,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-control-plane--wj7ezfg6w twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What is the control plane? | daily.dev og:description: An explainer on the control plane concept in distributed systems, describing how it orchestrates and directs the data plane across networking,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-control-plane--wj7ezfg6w og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Wj7eZFg6W.png og:image:alt: What is the control plane? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What is the control plane? **[ngrok Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/ngrok)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An explainer on the control plane concept in distributed systems, describing how it orchestrates and directs the data plane across networking, database-as-a-service, and analytics-as-a-service contexts. Covers control plane responsibilities like provisioning, routing, security policy enforcement, and the role of software-defined networking (SDN). Ends with links to related ngrok content on data planes and Kubernetes ingress. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is the difference between a control plane and a data plane in distributed systems? The control plane directs and orchestrates how a distributed system's data plane behaves, while the data plane does the actual work of processing and moving data. In cloud networking, the control plane creates and manages virtual networks and makes routing decisions; in database-as-a-service systems, it provisions instances, handles security configuration, and orchestrates upgrades and backups while the data plane executes the queries and stores data. _daily.dev surfaces architecture explainers like this for engineers designing distributed systems._ ### What does the control plane do in a BYOC (bring your own cloud) SaaS architecture? In a bring-your-own-cloud deployment, the SaaS provider's control plane manages and orchestrates data processing while the actual data stays on the customer's own infrastructure, whether on-premise, in the cloud, or both. This lets the provider run analytics or manipulation tasks without ever hosting the customer's raw data itself. _Teams evaluating BYOC deployment models can track architecture patterns like this via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Configuration as a Control Plane: Designing for Safety and Reliability at Scale](https://daily.dev/posts/configuration-as-a-control-plane-designing-for-safety-and-reliability-at-scale-bw3t7h8q2) · InfoQ · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Why Decoupling Control and Data Planes Is the Future of SaaS](https://daily.dev/posts/why-decoupling-control-and-data-planes-is-the-future-of-saas-0dmybfxmz) · The New Stack · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building a Kubernetes Platform — Think Big, Think in Planes](https://daily.dev/posts/building-a-kubernetes-platform-think-big-think-in-planes-zf7agtlpn) · Medium · 24 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#security](https://daily.dev/tags/security), [#cloud](https://daily.dev/tags/cloud), [#kubernetes](https://daily.dev/tags/kubernetes), [#distributed-systems](https://daily.dev/tags/distributed-systems) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-control-plane--wj7ezfg6w) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What is the control plane?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-control-plane--wj7ezfg6w","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-control-plane--wj7ezfg6w"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T07:20:50.744Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T07:24:25.026Z","description":"An explainer on the control plane concept in distributed systems, describing how it orchestrates and directs the data plane across networking,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e18b601501e2a0d8c03b9c03533ab9b2?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/e18b601501e2a0d8c03b9c03533ab9b2?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"ngrok Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ngrok Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--718XXxvE--/f_auto,q_auto/v1787469610/logos/ngrok?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/ngrok"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-control-plane--wj7ezfg6w","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"security,cloud,kubernetes,distributed-systems","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"ngrok Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/ngrok"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What is the control plane?"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-the-control-plane--wj7ezfg6w#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the difference between a control plane and a data plane in distributed systems?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The control plane directs and orchestrates how a distributed system's data plane behaves, while the data plane does the actual work of processing and moving data. 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