For the recent few years, it is notable that various industry bodies have been putting a lot of stress on "Going green". However on Tuesday Cisco Systems came out with software that will help organizations chop energy costs and reduce their carbon footprints as it is capable of managing devices and systems that gather up power.

Apparently, the novel EnergyWise Technology by Cisco is available as software built into IOS in Catalyst switches. In order to observe devices it uses standard protocols; report on those devices' energy use and in the end use policies to control those devices and the power they consume.

Judy Lin, senior vice president of Cisco's Ethernet technology business group said, "The ability to report on and monitor device power usage and set policies around it opens the door for solution providers to have a new conversation with customers while also being able to wrap in green consulting services."

It has been learnt that the rolling out of the EnergyWise would be done in three phases. In the first phase the EnergyWise will be available on the Catalyst 2960, 3560 and
3750 and a partnership with network monitoring vendor SolarWinds, undertakes network control, allowing users to administer the energy consumption of Power-over-Ethernet-powered IP devices like phones, wireless access points and video surveillance cameras would be included in it. It would be available next month. The power levels can be determined by the users, who can also create policies, discover power usage, manage power and create reports around consumption.

Coming on to the Phase two, which is expected this summer offers users IT control over non-PoE devices like PCs, laptops and printers. The Phase two, which would be available in Catalyst 4500 includes a partnership with Verdiem, unlocks the ability to monitor and manage PC use. The users via the second phase are also offered better measurement capabilities and location-assessment functionality.

The last but not the least, Phase three will have an EnergyWise that would be able to have a broader control.