1. A computer readable medium storing instructions to enable a computer to: operate a data center including a plurality of platforms; handle a plurality of workloads on the plurality of platforms; allocate the workloads among the platforms of the data center based, at least in part, on the power consumption characteristics of said platforms to reduce the power consumption of the data center; obtain information about the power consumption characteristics of components of a plurality of platforms, said components being less than an entire platform; and predict a power consumption characteristic of one platform based on power consumption characteristics of components of other platforms.