a method and system are disclosed to enable and control power reduction in a blade / chassis system . a “ maximum power reduction ” attribute is stored in the vpd of the blade . the management module of the chassis in which the blades and power supplies are located uses this information to manage the power reduction of blades when the system is operating in an over - subscription mode and a power supply fails . if throttling is required , the system knows the amount of power reduction available for each blade and controls the throttling by spreading it out among the blades in the system so that , ideally , no blade will cease operation altogether .