1. A method comprising: defining, in a first synthetic application definition, a first plurality of resource consumptions, wherein the first plurality of resource consumptions are equivalent to consumptions by a candidate application at a first level of user demand; distributing the first synthetic application definition to a synthetic application in a node of a computing system; consuming, with the synthetic application and based on the synthetic application definition, a plurality of quantities of resources of a plurality of nodes of the computing system; recording a first performance of the synthetic application; and evaluating the computing system based upon the first performance, comprising comparing the first performance to a requirement of a service level agreement (SLA).