An extensible communications protocol configured to enable dynamic discovery and management of self-aware devices in a multiple element computing architecture is provided. The protocol enables a message consisting essentially of a destination ID, a source ID, a message type, optional payloads, and a delimiter arrangement. The protocol is based on a scheme which represents structured data. Within the scheme, stacked delimiting characters are used to separate higher level data. Escape sequencers are selected to represent at least the escape character, the delimiting character, and the NULL (nothing at all). The lowest data partition may embed encoded data of any level, and can form nested encapsulation. New optional data types and message types can be added. Basic message types are supported to achieve the dynamic discovery and management of self-aware devices, and such protocol is used as the base of a dynamic device discovery and management system for self-aware devices.