A system contains a network testing engine that sends test data along different paths of a network between a source and a destination, wherein each path contains a plurality of network nodes, and receives, in response to sending the test data, response data about the paths. The system further contains a network path characteristics engine that determines characteristics of each path based on the response data, and a delivery parameters engine that receives a request for delivery of a data load from the source to the destination and determines, based on the request, delivery parameters. Furthermore, the system contains the source and a path selection engine that determines a selected path of the different paths based on the characteristics of the paths and the delivery parameters, and sends the selected data path to the source, which sends the data load along the selected path to the destination.