PowerDesigner PowerDesigner
Sybase PowerDesigner (formerly known as S-Designor)
PowerDesigner is the number one data modeling tool, at least as a 2003 Gartner group report concluded. It recently passed ERwin as the market leader in data modeling tools. However, PowerDesigner isn't just a data modeling tool. It also has Business Process Modeling, Object-Oriented Modeling, and in the newest version 10, XML Modeling. In the data modeling space, PowerDesigner can do relaxed generation from model type to model type, meaning you can have a high level conceptual model linked to a detailed conceptual model, which is then linked to a logical model, which is then linked to a physical model. The separation between models gives the various people involved autonomy and freedom, but the centralized Repository provides consistent and robust centralization and version management.
David Dichmann is the Product Manager at Sybase. He can be reached at david.dichmann@sybase.com by email, or by phone at 978-287-1594.
PowerDesigner started life as S-Designor, which was written by Xiao Wang of SDP Technologies, a French company that was started in 1983. Powersoft purchased SDP in 1995, and Sybase purchased Powersoft later that same year. Sybase currently owns all rights to PowerDesigner.
The first commercial release of S-Designor (version 2.0) in France was in 1989, and in the US in 1992. ProcessAnalyst was added to the suite in 1994. The first version of PowerDesigner (6.0) was released in 1997. WarehouseArchitect was added in 1998.
In 1999, PowerDesigner (7.0) was rewritten to take advantage of newer technologies and to provide an interface more consistent with other Sybase products. The latest version of PowerDesigner (9.5) was initially released in December of 2001, with maintenance releases through 2003. The next major release of the project is 10.0, the Minerva release, and is due out in Q4 2003.