This is the acronym for Multi-Dimensional OLAP. A multi-dimensional OLAP fulfils the requirements for an analytic application, where you require to access only summarized level of data.

This method stores the data in multi-dimensional arrays which is different from the two dimensional relational structure. The way the storage happens, it reduces the need for database space for small to medium number of dimensions, and can store data more efficiently compared to a relational database. However, as the dimensions (OR their attributes) go up, the storage becomes inefficient relative to a RDBMS.
A MOLAP solution gives faster response time to queries as it has a method of storage, which allows a quicker access and retrieval of summary information. The details of the storage (multi-dimensional arrays) are not covered at this point of time.
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