Scalable edge computing using devices with limited resources

An apparatus in one embodiment includes at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory. The processing device is configured to discover data sources associated with respective edge devices configured to communicate over at least one network, to obtain metadata characterizing the data sources, and to control performance of distributed analytics across a plurality of distributed processing nodes of the network utilizing the obtained metadata and locally accessible data provided by the corresponding data sources. In some embodiments, the edge devices comprise respective IoT gateways each associated with a set of IoT data sources. The IoT gateways are illustratively arranged in respective data zones that also encompass their respective sets of IoT data sources, and the distributed analytics is performed without requiring that locally accessible data from the IoT data sources leave the corresponding data zones. At least portions of the metadata may be obtained from an edge device management system associated with at least a subset of the edge devices.