Which component is responsible for maintaining the flow state table for active traffic flows?

The Data Plane is the component responsible for forwarding packets in a network virtualization platform like VMware NSX. It processes traffic based on rules provided by the control plane. As part of this processing, it creates and maintains a state table (or flow table) to track active network connections. This allows for stateful firewalling, ensuring that return traffic for an established connection is permitted without needing a separate rule.

A. Management Plane: This plane provides the user interface for configuration and monitoring. It does not process live network traffic or maintain flow states.
C. Central Control Plane: This plane computes and distributes network topology and policy information to the local control plane; it does not handle the real-time state of individual flows.
D. Local Control Plane: This plane resides on each hypervisor and programs the data plane with forwarding rules received from the central control plane, but it does not maintain the active flow table itself.

1. VMware NSX-T Data Center Documentation, "NSX-T Data Center and Components," Section: NSX-T Data Center Architecture. The documentation describes the data plane's role in packet forwarding and state management at the hypervisor level.

2. VMware NSX-T Reference Design Guide, Chapter 2: "NSX-T Architecture," Section: "Data Plane." This guide details that the data plane, implemented in the hypervisor kernel, is responsible for the stateful processing of network packets.