A managed node is a node that has been federated into a deployment manager cell. In a managed node, you can configure and run managed servers.
However, the node agent does not need to be running in order for the applications to run or to configure resources in the node.
A managed node can contain one or more servers, which are managed by a deployment manager. You can deploy solutions to the servers in a managed node, but the managed node does not contain a sample applications gallery. The managed node is defined by a custom profile and has a First steps console.