A method, includes receiving a packet flow optimization policy including a flow identifier of a target packet flow, a device identifier of a to-be-adjusted forwarding device, and information about the next hop; obtaining status information of an access control list (ACL) of the to-be-adjusted forwarding device based on the device identifier, where the status information includes resource usage status information of the ACL and capability information that indicates whether the to-be-adjusted forwarding device supports packet flow forwarding that is based on the ACL; and when determining, based on the status information, that the ACL includes an idle resource and the to-be-adjusted forwarding device supports packet flow forwarding that is based on the ACL, sending an ACL record to the to-be-adjusted forwarding device, where the ACL record includes the flow identifier and the information about the next hop.