A system for providing a partition work manager for use in a multitenant application server environment, comprising: one or more computers, including the multitenant application server environment executing thereon, the multitenant application server environment configured to enable the deployment and execution of software applications, including and configured to operate according to a domain configuration usable at runtime to define an application server domain of the multitenant application server environment for execution of the software applications, together with a plurality of deployable resources which can be used within the multitenant application server environment, a plurality of partitions (640, 650) which can be defined by a system administrator, wherein each partition is configured to provide an administrative subdivision of the domain, wherein the partition is allocated to a particular tenant, and wherein each partition contains a resource group which references a resource group template of the multitenant application server environment, the resource group template specifying software applications and resources which are accessible to the partition, wherein the resource group is a collection of the deployable resources for which an administrator has provided all information needed to connect to the resources identified in the resource group, the information including the credentials for connecting to a data source, the software applications and resources specified in the resource group template being domain-wide applications and resources, wherein the resource group of each of one of the plurality of partitions and a different one of the plurality of partitions both reference the same resource group template; the partition work manager configurable, by the system administrator, to assign a fair share value to each of the one or more partitions within the multitenant application server environment, each fair share value configured for use by the system to control thread usage associated with one or more partitions. one or more computers, including the multitenant application server environment executing thereon, the multitenant application server environment configured to enable the deployment and execution of software applications, including and configured to operate according to a domain configuration usable at runtime to define an application server domain of the multitenant application server environment for execution of the software applications, together with a plurality of deployable resources which can be used within the multitenant application server environment, a plurality of partitions (640, 650) which can be defined by a system administrator, wherein each partition is configured to provide an administrative subdivision of the domain, wherein the partition is allocated to a particular tenant, and wherein each partition contains a resource group which references a resource group template of the multitenant application server environment, the resource group template specifying software applications and resources which are accessible to the partition, wherein the resource group is a collection of the deployable resources for which an administrator has provided all information needed to connect to the resources identified in the resource group, the information including the credentials for connecting to a data source, the software applications and resources specified in the resource group template being domain-wide applications and resources, wherein the resource group of each of one of the plurality of partitions and a different one of the plurality of partitions both reference the same resource group template; the partition work manager configurable, by the system administrator, to assign a fair share value to each of the one or more partitions within the multitenant application server environment, each fair share value configured for use by the system to control thread usage associated with one or more partitions.