Content-based distribution and execution of analytics applications on distributed datasets

A method, comprising:

• inserting, from a source of an analytics task into a network, a scout packet which includes a description of distributed datasets that match a set of requirements of the analytics task, the description including parameters of the distributed datasets;
• delivering, by routing elements of the network, one or more copies of the scout packet to a plurality of distributed data sources residing in the network by traversing respective initial paths to the plurality of distributed data sources;
• determining each of the plurality of distributed data sources that matches the set of requirements of the analytics task;
• returning, by the routing elements, the one or more copies of the scout packet and the initial paths traversed by one or more copies of the scout packet, from the determined distributed data sources of the plurality of distributed data sources that have a distributed dataset matching the set of requirements of the analytics task, to the source of the analytics task;
• delivering a copy of the analytics task to only each of the determined distributed data sources of the plurality of distributed data sources that include a distributed data set that matched the requirements of the analytics task following the same paths as the initial paths traversed by the one or more copies of the scout packet;
• executing the analytics task by hardware processing elements at the determined distributed data sources of the plurality of distributed data sources that include the distributed datasets that match the set of requirements of the analytics task;
• and
• returning execution results for the analytics task to the source of the analytics task.