To enable data packets, which can be present in different data transmission formats and which are to be routed in a communication network, to be stored as simply and effectively as possible, it is proposed in accordance with the invention to generate for each data packet to be stored a descriptor (8) having a special data structure, the descriptor (8) comprising, in particular, a data field (14) with a pointer array. The data of the data packet to be stored are stored in a memory (1) which comprises a multiplicity of memory blocks (7) of the same size. The pointer array of the descriptor (8) points to the start addresses of the memory blocks (7) needed for storing the data packet.