A method of parallel processing by networked devices, in which distributed data in a network is accessed in parallel to provide results. Commands and queries by a user station define a set of such distributed data. The networked devices access the distributed data in portions, individually process each portion, conduct peer-to-peer communication to aggregate results from processing each portion, and individually determine whether and when to report results. Making effective use of network assets (such as processing and storage at each node), making effective use of concurrency of network assets, limiting bandwidth use between network assets and user stations, and limiting use of assets (such as processing and storage) at user stations.