The scheduler distributes resources using capacities that are allocated to each organization or environment. The capacities determine the percentage of cluster resources that are guaranteed to each organization or environment. The scheduler distributes any excess capacity that is underutilized.

For example, a single organization can use a capacity scheduler to assign resources to test and production environments to guarantee each environment a certain percentage of cluster resources. When the production environment is not fully utilizing its allocated resources, the test environment can use the production environment's excess cluster resources. Similarly, when the test environment is not fully utilizing its allocated resources, the production environment can use the test environment's excess cluster resources. Additionally, the organization does not have to create and maintain different Hadoop clusters for each environment.