An adaptive throttling system for minimizing the impact of non-production work on production work in a computer system is provided. The adaptive throttling system throttles production work and non-production work to optimize production. The adaptive throttling system allows system administrators to specify a quantified limit on the performance impact of non-production or utility work on production work. The throttling rate of the utility is then automatically determined by a supervisory agent, so that the utilities' impact is kept within the specified limit. The adaptive throttling system adapts dynamically to changes in workloads so as to ensure that valuable system resources are well utilized and utility work is not delayed unnecessarily.