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| 1 | +# Planes |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +Resources and methods on an API can be divided into the *plane* that they reside |
| 4 | +or perform operations upon. For the context of APIs, the following planes are |
| 5 | +defined: |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +- Management plane: a uniform, resource-oriented API that primarily |
| 8 | + configures and allows retrieval of resources. |
| 9 | +- Data plane: a heterogenous API (ideally resource-oriented) that reads and |
| 10 | + write user data. Often connects to entities provisioned by the management |
| 11 | + plane, such as virtual machines. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +The term "plane" was originally used in networking architecture. Although system |
| 14 | +and network architecture often defines additional planes (e.g. control plane or |
| 15 | +power planes), as the AEPs are focused on the interface, they are not defined in |
| 16 | +this AEP. |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +## Guidance |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +### Management Plane |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +Management resources and methods exist primarily to provision, configure, and |
| 23 | +audit the resources that the data plane interfaces with. |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +As an example, the following are considered management resources for a cloud |
| 26 | +provider: |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +- virtual machines |
| 29 | +- virtual private networks |
| 30 | +- virtual disks |
| 31 | +- a blob store instance |
| 32 | +- a project or account |
| 33 | + |
| 34 | +### Data Plane |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +Methods on the data plane operate on user data in a variety of data formats, and |
| 37 | +generally interface with a resource provisioned via a management plane API. |
| 38 | +Examples of data plane methods include: |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +- writing and reading rows in a table |
| 41 | +- pushing to or pulling from a message queue |
| 42 | +- uploading blobs to or downloading blobs from a blob store instance |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | +Data plane APIs **may** be heterogenous across a larger API surface, due to |
| 45 | +requirements including high throughput, low latency, or the need to adhere to an |
| 46 | +existing interface specification (e.g. ANSI SQL). |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +- For convenience, resources and methods that operate on the data plane **may** |
| 49 | +expose themselves via resource-oriented management APIs. If so, those resources |
| 50 | +and methods **must** adhere to the requirements of the management plane as |
| 51 | +specified in the other AEPs. |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +### Major distinctions between management and data plane |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +- [Declarative clients][] operate on the management plane exclusively. |
| 56 | +- Data planes are often on the critical path of user-facing functionality, and |
| 57 | + therefore: |
| 58 | + - Have higher availabilty requirements than management planes. |
| 59 | + - Are more peformance-sensitive than management planes. |
| 60 | + - Require higher-throughput than management planes. |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +[Declarative clients]: ./0003.md#declarative-clients |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +## Changelog |
| 66 | + |
| 67 | +- **2024-01-27**: initial fork of this AEP from https://google.aip.dev/111. |
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