Patent ID: 8656194

Claim:
A power supply apparatus to distribute power to network devices, said power supply apparatus comprising: a power supply; a plurality of programmable current sense and control units; a shared power bus that couples the power supply to the plurality of programmable current sense and control units; a plurality of output ports, each of the plurality of output ports coupled to one of the plurality of programmable current sense and control units, wherein each of the plurality of output ports comprises a cable assembly interface; a controller coupled to each of the plurality of programmable current sense and control units and to each of the output ports, wherein the controller is to calculate a power available per output port and to communicate the power available per output port to the network devices, wherein the controller is to receive power requests from the network devices, and wherein the controller is to allocate power to the network devices according to the power requests received from the network devices and to send acknowledgement messages to the network devices indicating power amounts allocated to each of the network devices.