Patent ID: 8724282

Claim:
An article comprising: a non-transitory machine readable medium having stored thereon instructions that when executed by a machine result in the machine performing operations comprising: determining, by at least one component of a plurality of components populating a shelf system, which of the plurality of components is a component to perform shelf management; discovering, via a shelf manager included within said non-transitory machine readable medium, at least one variable from any one of said plurality of components populating said shelf system; performing, via said shelf manager, at least one shelf management function based on said at least one variable with said component to perform shelf management, 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 components populating said shelf system to communicate with one another; determining a total amount of power available to said plurality of components populating said shelf system; and monitoring power consumption of at least one of said plurality of components populating said shelf system; wherein said shelf manager is location independent within said shelf system; and wherein said component to perform shelf management is configured to perform another function independent of said shelf manager.