A cooperative data stream processing system is provided that utilizes a plurality of independent, autonomous and possibly heterogeneous sites in a cooperative arrangement to process user-defined job requests over dynamic, continuous streams of data. The sites negotiate peering relationships to share data and processing resources to handle the submitted job requests. These peering relationships can be cooperative or federated and can be expressed using common interest policies. Each site within the system runs an instance of a system architecture for processing job requests and is therefore a self-contained, fully functional instance of the cooperative data stream processing system.