1. A method to characterize a platform, comprising: configuring a processor to operate in a first mode; executing a workload on the processor; sampling a plurality of registers associated with a performance monitoring unit (PMU); transforming the sampled plurality of registers into a probabilistic representation; partitioning the probabilistic representation into a plurality of discrete output symbols; and associating one of the plurality of discrete output symbols with the workload based on a probability value associated with the one of the plurality of discrete output symbols.