ESSBASE: Use Dense Formulas Instead of Sparse for Performance Considerations
When in developing calculation scripts (or business rules), sometimes we are tempted to put together formulas without closely exam the formulas we are assembling are sparse or dense formulas. Since each time when Essbase tries to calculate sparse formulas, it has to search the blocks in the storage, those blocks which contain the sparse members, and brings them into memory. This takes time! Let's look at an example. Different technologies are installed into airplanes to enable the aviation connectivity. As time goes by, old technologies are uninstalled (ex. ATG), retrofit to newer technology (ex. ATG to ATG4, to KU, or ATG4 to KU), or transferred from on airline to another. In all those scenarios, we need to calculate AOL (Airplane On Line), CLOL (Content Loader On Line). Developers put together the following business rule - /* Current Year Calc*/ Fix(&CurrYear, "Actual", "Jan":&CurrMonth, {rtp_Airline}, {rtp_AircraftType}, {rtp_Region}, {rtp_Ro