Abstract: Methods for managing communications between server devices (30) and customer devices (11,12,13) comprise steps of reading/writing parameters at one of the devices (11,12,13,30) for configuring/monitoring the other one of the devices (11,12,13,30) and, to allow arbitrary parameters to be introduced, comprise steps of, for the parameters, creating attributes comprising extended markup language schemes for defining the parameters. Said one of the devices (30) is linked to a northbound interface (33) and a southbound interface (31,32), the creating step being performed via the southbound interface (31,32). Said one of the devices (30) is linked via the northbound interface (33) to for example a service provider (40) and via the southbound interface (31,32) to for example the customer device (11,12,13). The extended markup language schemes may define types, descriptions of the types, descriptions and/or metadata of the for example non-standardized parameters with names and values.