he mesh admin. Istio 1.7 introduces a new <span class=term data-title="External Control Plane" data-body='<p>An external control plane is a <a href="/docs/reference/glossary/#control-plane">control plane</a>
that externally manages mesh workloads running in their own <a href="/docs/reference/glossary/#cluster">clusters</a>
or other infrastructure. The control plane may, itself, be deployed in a cluster, although not
in one of the clusters that is part of the mesh it&amp;rsquo;s controlling.
Its purpose is t