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SAP PowerDesigner (or PowerDesigner) is a collaborativeenterprise modelling tool produced by Sybase, currently owned by SAP. It can run either under Microsoft Windows as a nativeapplication or in an Eclipse environment through a plugin. It supports model-driven architecture software design, and stores models using a variety of file extensions, such as .bpm, .cdm and .pdm. The internal file structure can be either XML or a compressed binary file format. It can also store models in a database repository.
PowerDesigner started life as AMC*Designor in France and S-Designor internationally, which was written by Xiao-Yun Wang of SDP Technologies. The "or" in the product name refers to "Oracle", since initially the product was developed to design Oracle databases, but very quickly evolved to support all major RDBMS in the market. SDP Technologies was a French company that was started in 1983. Powersoft purchased SDP in 1995, and Sybase had purchased Powersoft earlier in 1994. Shortly after the acquisition, the product was renamed to be consistent with the Powersoft brand. Sybase currently owns all rights to PowerDesigner and PowerAMC (the French version of PowerDesigner). In May 2010, SAP announced that it would be acquiring Sybase for $5.8 billion.[3]
The data modeling features of the French and English editions were originally following 2 different methodologies: Merise for PowerAMC and information technology engineering (based on Yourdon / DeMarco[4] works) for PowerDesigner. Since version 7, both editions support all methodologies and only differ from their user language. From v16.6 onwards, both editions are called PowerDesigner and are delivered in a single installer.
Version Historyedit
1989 - The first commercial release of AMC*Designor (version 2.0) in France
1992 - The first commercial release of S-Designer in the US.
1994 - ProcessAnalyst was added to the suite in 1994.
November 2011 - PowerDesigner 16.0 released with new Shell, Role-based UI, Glossary, Impact analysis on the repository, Sybase IQ reference architecture wizard, New database support, Web portal enhancements
March 2016 - PowerDesigner 16.6 released with Support for SAP HANA Calculation Views and SAP HANA Core Data Services (CDS). PowerDesigner Web can now edit Enterprise Architecture and Requirements Models.
April 2020 - PowerDesigner 16.7[5] released with new features supporting: Export from Web privilege, Limit the choice of model types offered in New Model dialog, New models added, Customize link symbol labels, Generate Models using the CSN notation, OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials authentication[6]