Definitions for "Sparsity"
the property of being scanty or scattered; lacking denseness
The relative percentage of a multidimensional structure's cells that do not contain data. Analysis Services stores only cells that contain data. A sparse cube requires less storage than a dense cube of identical structure design.
A concept that refers to multidimensional data in which a relatively high percentage of the combinations of dimension values do not contain actual data. Such "empty," or NA, values take up storage space in an analytic workspace. To handle sparse data efficiently, you can create a composite. There are two types of sparsity. Controlled sparsity occurs when a range of values of one or more dimensions has no data; for example, a new variable dimensioned by month for which you do not have data for past months. The cells exist because you have past months in the month dimension, but the cells contain NA values. Random sparsity occurs when NA values are scattered throughout the variable, usually because some combinations of dimension values never have any data. For example, a district might only sell certain products and never have data for other products. Other districts might sell some of those products and other ones, too. See also composite, NA value.