Patent ID: 7817394

Claim:
An article comprising: a machine readable medium having stored thereon instructions that when executed by a machine result in the machine performing operations comprising: discovering, via a shelf manager included within said machine readable medium of at least one component of a plurality of components populated on a shelf system, at least one variable from any one of said plurality of components populated on said shelf system, said shelf manager including an interface abstraction layer configured to provide a programming interface to said shelf manager and to exchange at least one command with at least one additional interface, said shelf manager further including a shelf management abstraction layer configured to provide an interface layer for an instrumentation stack; and performing, via said shelf manager, at least one shelf management function based on said at least one variable, said at least one shelf management function comprising: determining signaling types of an interface associated with each of said plurality of components; enabling said plurality of circuit boards to communicate with one another; determining a total amount of power available to a plurality of said components of said shelf system; and monitoring power consumption of at least one of said components; wherein said shelf manager is location independent within said shelf system; wherein said at least one component is configured to perform another function independent of said shelf manager; and wherein said shelf manager is integrated into said at least one component such that said shelf manager utilizes a component slot of said shelf system associated with said at least one component.