I don't know about you, but I don't trust the on line power calculators out there from vendor websites. And, after meeting with Steve Fink a senior infrastructure architect from Avanade, it hit me why I don't trust the power calculators. There is limited or no transparency as to how the calculators work and what assumptions are made. Steve was showing the excel document Avanade uses with its customers to calculate Green IT projects. We could look at any cell and see the math behind a calculation, and Avanade gives its customers the excel document so they can work on their own Green IT calculations.

If the online power calculators provided the option to download an excel document, then you could see the math behind the calculator, but I am sure the vendor marketing team wants to keep you on their web site, and collect data (which they'll probably never look at) as to what values are entered and try to use it for lead retrieval.

If you are working with a consulting firm ask for the excel document, and if you are up on a vendor's site, provide feedback you want an excel document.