The invention concerns a method of processing a plurality of data packets in a packet switched communication network comprising at least one switching device (1) as well as a corresponding switching device. The switching device (1) comprises two or more sub-engines (21, . . . , 29). A control unit (7) of the at least one switching device (1) receives a data packet comprising a header (10) of a communication packet exchanged via the communication network. The control unit (7) applies at least one filter operation (50) to the header (10) and generating thereby filtered information (100). The control unit (7) maps the filtered information (100) on a hash-tag (30) according to a hash-function (300). The control unit (7) provides a tagged-header (11) by means of inserting the hash-tag (30) in the header (10) of the data packet. The control unit (7) sends the data packet to a sub-engine (24) of the two or more sub-engines (21, . . . , 29) according to the tagged-header (11) for further processing of the data packet.