A system comprises a workload evaluator that is operable to receive a representative workload that is representative of competing demands for capacity of at least one shared computing resource. The workload evaluator evaluates the representative workload and computes a metric representing a degree of burstiness of demands present in the representative workload. The metric representing degree of burstiness of the representative workload may be used for estimating an upper bound on quality of service provided by a workload manager to the representative workload. The metric may also be used for evaluating at least one scheduler parameter setting of the workload manager to aid in determining an optimal parameter setting based at least in part on the estimated impact of the representative workload on QoS provided by the workload manager.