Provided herein are workload management techniques that asynchronously configure pluggable databases within a compute cloud. In an embodiment, the compute cloud receives an administrative request that indicates configuration details for a pluggable database. The compute cloud generates a configuration descriptor that specifies an asynchronous job based on the configuration details of the request. The compute cloud accesses hosting metadata to detect at least one of: a) a current container database that already hosts the pluggable database, b) a target container database that will host the pluggable database, or c) a particular computer that hosts at least one of: the current container database, or the target container database. The compute cloud executes the asynchronous job to configure the pluggable database based on at least one of: the hosting metadata, or the configuration descriptor. Thread pools, lanes, and queues may facilitate load balancing to avoid priority inversion, starvation, and denial of service.