Realization of the smart grid vision requires meeting the ever increasing reliability challenges by harnessing modern communication and information technologies to enable an IT infrastructure that provides grid wide coordinated monitoring and control capabilities. Such IT infrastructure, while facilitating utilization of modern cyber security measures, should be capable of providing fail proof and nearly instantaneous bidirectional communications among all devices ranging from individual loads to the grid wide control centers including all important equipment at the distribution and transmission levels. This involves processing a vast number of data transactions for analysis and automation. Managing the communication burden and resulting data latency is essential for efficient analysis and fast control responses and calls for distribution of intelligence throughout the infrastructure, since centralized systems are too slow for this purpose. A distributed system enables local data processing and minimizes the need for massive data exchanges (e.g., bad data detection at substation level, feeder level forecasts aggregated at substation level). A distributed system can enable the high performance needed for preventing or containing rapidly evolving adverse events. We propose a distributed architectural framework to deliver such performance using modern enabling technologies: