Data processing method and apparatus

A data processing apparatus, comprising:

• a first dispatch node and M processing nodes, wherein M is an integer greater than or equal to 2;
• and
• the first dispatch node is configured to:
• receive a first data packet and a flow label of the first data packet that are sent by a second virtualized network function component VNFC, wherein the flow label is generated by the second VNFC according to flow information of the first data packet or is received by the second VNFC from a third VNFC;
• and select, according to the flow label of the first data packet, a first processing node configured to process the first data packet, wherein the first processing node is a processing node of the M processing nodes, and the first dispatch node and the M processing nodes belong to a first VNFC,
• wherein the first processing node is configured to:
• process the first data packet received by the first dispatch node to obtain a second data packet;
• determine that a granularity of flow information of the second data packet is finer than a granularity of the flow information for generating the flow label;
• and generate a new flow label according to the flow information of the second data packet.