A method comprises receiving a representative workload of a computing system, where the representative workload comprises at least one composite transaction. In certain embodiments, the representative workload is a historical workload of a computing system. In general, a composite transaction refers to a transaction that comprises a plurality of transactions. For instance, a given transaction for serving a client's request for information (e.g., a web page) may include embedded therein a plurality of requests/responses for objects (e.g., images, etc.) that form the information (e.g., that form the requested web page). The method further comprises determining, based at least in part on a statistical regression-based analysis, a resource cost for the at least one composite transaction, where the resource cost reflects an amount of utilization of at least one resource of the computing system, such as CPU utilization, in serving the at least one composite transaction.