Data forwarding method, device, and system are provided for software-defined networking. An SDN control device delivers a proactive flow entry according to network topology information, where the proactive flow entry is unrelated to a service, and instead related to the network topology information. The proactive flow entry may be reused during data forwarding. After data is received, the SDN control device delivers reactive flow entries to some switching devices, where the reactive flow entries are related to the service, but are delivered to a subset of switching devices. This reduces flow entries delivered by the SDN control device to some switching devices, so that occupation of resources of the SDN control device and a switching device by flow entries is reduced.