Cisco EnergyWise fundamentals

Cisco EnergyWise is a key part of the Borderless Network concept. According to this document:

The network discovers Cisco EnergyWise manageable devices,
monitors their power consumption, and takes action based on business rules to reduce
power consumption. EnergyWise uses a unique domain-naming system to query and
summarize information from large sets of devices, making it simpler than traditional
network management capabilities. Cisco EnergyWise’s management interfaces allow
facilities and network management applications to communicate with endpoints and
each other using the network as a unifying fabric. The management interface uses
standard SNMP or SSL to integrate Cisco and third-party management systems

I know, I know you will say that it’s a lot of marketing and this is typically for Cisco, but let’s be fair. Tell me one company that is not marketing their product. It’s true that Cisco is quite aggressive in their campaigns, but we have to admit that many times the quality of the products meet our expectation.

Back to EnergyWise, I was lucky enough to have my question taken and being discussed in the live Cisco Borderless Network phase 2, European presentation, on 18th of March. I was curios about the following thing. The Phase 2 campaign was oriented on the power and energy saving, by controlling a lot of device power remotely and being able to shutdown an entire environment when it’s not needed. I asked how will Cisco EnergyWise accomplish this? Either controlling the power outlet in which a device (e.g. laptop) is connected or directly OVER the Ethernet wires.
Their answer was that in the moment Cisco is working closely with the companies that develop network cards, to make this compatible with EnergyWise to be able to power the device over the Ethernet wires. I know about PoE, but PoE is something different and I’m sure that it does not offer enough energy to power up a laptop.
When the recording of the live session will be available, I sure hope to get it and to posted here. In the meantime, I found a very nice explanation of the EnergyWise fundamentals from TechWiseTV. Enjoy it:

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