1. A method of processing a network device operating system operation, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: receiving, from each of several network device operating system components, callback registration information that specifies the network device operating system operations supported by the network device operating system component and that establishes a callback for providing (a) a network device operating system operation and (b) data associated with the operation to the network device operating system component; receiving (a) the network device operating system operation and (b) data associated with the operation within an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document; parsing the XML document to identify the network device operating system operation; selecting, based on the callback registration information, one of the several network device operating system components that supports the identified network device operating system operation, where the callback registration information received from the selected one of several network device operating system components specifies that the identified network device operating system operation is supported by the selected one of several network device operating system components; preparing the data associated with the operation for use by the selected one of several network device operating system component; providing the identified network device operating system operation and the prepared data in the callback; receiving, from the selected one of the several network device operating system components, responsive data that reflects the results of performing the identified network device operating system operation; creating a responsive XML document that contains the responsive data in XML format; and sending the responsive XML document to a network management application.