Cisco's new Green Guru, Paul Marcoux, proposes Cisco be the router of energy data in the data center.

Using open standards, the company wants to get server and storage vendors to collect and share information about their equipment and send it to Cisco routers and switches. The data could include power consumption, operating temperature and more. It's becoming a critical job, and because the network touches all IT resources across the enterprise, data collection should happen there, according to Paul Marcoux, vice president of green engineering.

I think Cisco may find the vendors have other plans for this data then giving it to Cisco. Burton Group raises this issues as well in the article.

Cisco's proposal would represent a whole new role for networks beyond communications, said Burton Group analyst Dave Passmore. Server vendors might go along with the plan, but Cisco can't count on smooth sailing, he said. Centralized power regulation would play a role in overall management of the datacenter, an area where Cisco is attempting to make inroads with other initiatives as well.
"Who controls virtualization in the data center is going to be the new battleground," Passmore said.