Embodiments of the present invention provide an intermediate node determining method and apparatus, where the method includes: collecting an original data flow used to acquire a target service; based on the original data flow, determining request nodes and response nodes that are in nodes, and determining a connection relationship between the nodes; combining the determined request nodes into a first composite node and the determined response nodes into a second composite node, and determining, based on the determined connection relationship between the nodes, a connection path between the first composite node and the second composite node; and determining, based on a selected optimization objective and from the connection paths, at least one preferred connection path, to acquire an intermediate node on the at least one preferred connection path.