Protection in distributed energy systems depends on the operation of a set of coordinated protective devices spread around the power system. Usually these devices encompass some communication skills and can be remotely operated by energy management systems. Despite this interaction readiness, most of them rely only on non-standard communication protocols and some interoperability issues still remain. This paper presents an innovative plug & play approach for the integration of protective devices, supported by a standard-based and service-oriented software infrastructure entitled NEMO. This approach adopts the IEC 61850 semantic information model and the DPWS specific communication service mapping, to perform a seamless device integration and communication of protective devices.