1. A method, comprising: upon determining that a first node configured with a parameterized reactive agent is going to participate in a collaborative, distributed data de-duplication operation in a collaborative, distributed, data de-duplication (CDDD) topology, controlling the first node, in accordance with a set of parameters associated with the parameterized reactive agent, to create a de-duplication negotiation packet (DNPkt) associated with processing raw data available to the first node; controlling the first node to transmit the DNPkt to a second node in the CDDD topology; receiving, from the second node, a reactive control packet (RCPkt) responsive to the DNPkt; and selectively reconfiguring the parameterized reactive agent by modifying the set of parameters in response to information in the RCPkt.