1. A method comprising: determining a set of processors having multiple processor cores present in a computer system, the processor cores forming an aggregated set of processor cores for the system; determining a set of dependencies among a set of workload components executing on the set of processors and processor cores; receiving a policy, the policy including rules associated with managing one or more of power consumption, heat production, operating cost or workload balancing for the set of aggregated processor cores; receiving a workload event; and in response to the workload event, setting a state of one or more of the processor cores in accordance with the workload event, the policy and the set of dependencies.