A system, method and computer program product are provided for managing configuration data. According to the method, a plurality of configuration values are stored in a hierarchical tree having a plurality of nodes, a defined structure, and defined data types for the stored configuration values, with each node being associated with at least one configuration value. At least one application component is registered with at least one of the nodes of the tree, based on at least one query received from the at least one application component. The at least one application component is notified when a configuration value associated with the at least one node is modified, based on an addition or change in at least one configuration value that matches the at least one query. In a preferred embodiment, the hierarchical tree is an Extensible Markup Language (XML) tree, and an XML schema describes the structure of the XML tree and the data types that are stored.