Computing capacity of a computing environment can be managed by controlling it associated processing capacity based on a target (or desired) capacity. In addition, fine-grained control over the processing capacity can be exercised. For example, a computing system can change the processing capacity (e.g., processing rate) of at least one processor operating based on a target capacity. The computing system may also be operable to change the processing capacity based on a measured processing capacity (e.g., a measured average of various processing rates of a processor taken over a period of time when a processor may have been operating at different processing rates over that period). By way of example, the processing rate of a processor can be switched between 1/8 and 2/8 of a maximum processing rate to achieve virtually any effective processing rates between them.