A method comprising: receiving a data packet at a routing engine of a node of a network; selecting via policy determinations, from a forwarding table of the node, a route for sending the data packet from the node to a destination of the data packet, wherein the forwarding table comprises route characteristics, comprising route costs, related to two or more routes from the node to the destination; analyzing, by a hardware computing device, the selected route to determine whether the selected route is suitable to convey the data packet based on real-time traffic information; returning the data packet to the routing engine of the node after modifying metadata of the data packet if the selected route is determined to be unsuitable to convey the data packet, the metadata being modified to indicate that the selected route is determined to be unsuitable to convey the data packet; and selecting, from the forwarding table, an alternate route for the data packet in place of the previous selected route if the previous selected route is determined to be unsuitable to convey the data packet; wherein selection of the alternate route is contrary to, or relaxes, the policy; and wherein the packet is for an application for which the policy requires that data packets for the application be sent along a route with at least a predetermined Quality of Service 'QoS' and that a packet be dropped when an initially-selected best route is unsuitable, and selection of the alternate route comprises sending the data packets along a route having a lower QoS than the predetermined QoS, which yields a better result than dropping the data packet. receiving a data packet at a routing engine of a node of a network; selecting via policy determinations, from a forwarding table of the node, a route for sending the data packet from the node to a destination of the data packet, wherein the forwarding table comprises route characteristics, comprising route costs, related to two or more routes from the node to the destination; analyzing, by a hardware computing device, the selected route to determine whether the selected route is suitable to convey the data packet based on real-time traffic information; returning the data packet to the routing engine of the node after modifying metadata of the data packet if the selected route is determined to be unsuitable to convey the data packet, the metadata being modified to indicate that the selected route is determined to be unsuitable to convey the data packet; and selecting, from the forwarding table, an alternate route for the data packet in place of the previous selected route if the previous selected route is determined to be unsuitable to convey the data packet; wherein selection of the alternate route is contrary to, or relaxes, the policy; and wherein the packet is for an application for which the policy requires that data packets for the application be sent along a route with at least a predetermined Quality of Service 'QoS' and that a packet be dropped when an initially-selected best route is unsuitable, and selection of the alternate route comprises sending the data packets along a route having a lower QoS than the predetermined QoS, which yields a better result than dropping the data packet.