Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for a Session-level SDT component in the control plane to handle setup, recovery and mobility of individual session requests in real time. The Session-level SDT component may comprise path management that performs either stateless of stateful path switching for an ongoing session, whether download or uplink, according to the stateful requirements of the session. The path management may be in conjunction with user equipment mobility management operation; it may also be in conjunction with network scalability and automation operation, such as load balancing.