Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide a method of operating a service provider network node in a service provider network, comprising: establishing an interface between a control plane processing part and a data plane processing part for routing of control packets at the data plane processing part; at the control plane processing part, generating a control packet for routing through the service provider network; and at the control plane processing part, sending the control packet to the data plane processing part via the interface, to cause the data plane processing part to route the control packet through the service provider network using the one or more routing tables maintained by the data plane processing part in response to receiving the control packet from the control plane processing part via the interface.