Patent ID: 7353415

Claim:
A method for managing power usage levels for new blades installed in a blade server, comprising: initializing one or more blades within a chassis for a blade server; adding a new blade to a chassis, the new blade configured to have two or more power usage levels; powering up a baseboard management controller (BMC) for the new blade without powering up a central processing unit (CPU) for the new blade; reporting a power usage level for the new blade from the BMC to a chassis controller, the power usage level being a level other than the maximum power usage level for the blade; assessing with the chassis controller a new total power usage level for the chassis based upon the reported power usage level for the new blade; providing instructions from the chassis controller to the BMC to allow the blade to power-up using the power usage level for the new blade if the new total power usage level for the chassis will be below a maximum total power usage level for the chassis; and operating the new blade using the power usage level.