The present invention relates to data packet processing in a data network, and provides a method and system for processing data packets. The method comprising: dividing flows containing data packets into elephant flows and mice flows according to a particular division parameter, wherein, an elephant flow contains more data packets than a mice flow; transmitting the divided elephant flows and mice flows to a virtual switch in a server; processing the mice flows at the virtual switch, and transmitting the elephant flows and the processed mice flows to a hardware switch in network; and processing the elephant flows at the hardware switch, and forwarding the received mice flows and the processed elephant flows. With the method and system, network performance may be effectively improved.