According to methods, apparatuses, and computer program products described by way of non-limiting examples presented herein, a computer system operates as an intelligent node in a distributed network. In one or more embodiments, the installation and execution of a node operating computer program product (“node software”) on a computer system configures that computer system to operate as an intelligent node in a distributed network. The computer system may reside at the edge of the network and thus may include a number of physical world sensors and/or actuators that represent valuable but hard-to-reach data sources/sinks from the perspective of the network at large. The node software operates the computer system as an edge application server and enterprise service bus, intelligently processing data from sensors, actuators, and other edge systems and devices. Other applications, such as server-based data processing and storing, are also easily implemented via the node software.