Management of a network may be accomplished by adjusting timer settings and/or retry criteria. For example, communications and management from an end-to-end perspective of entities in a network may be conducted; timers and/or retry criteria may be adjusted dynamically based on network traffic load; timers and/or retry criteria may be adjusted dynamically based on overload conditions; feedback mechanisms may be implemented to allow downstream network elements to inform upstream network elements about the health status and/or load condition of the network; and/or differentiated timer and retry criteria/mechanisms may be implemented.