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The most common scenario is a mixed workload environment. Typically, SQL Server I/O patterns do not strictly fall into an OLTP or OLAP pattern. This behavior makes SQL Server workloads challenging because no two workloads behave the same. In addition, the same SQL Server host or instance may be servicing multiple applications or transaction workloads.
Mixed workload can also imply that multiple applications (in addition to SQL Server) are residing on the same host or accessing the same storage. The combined workload of these applications invalidates any typical application I/O usage pattern. For these reasons, gather performance metrics for best sizing results.