What is the difference between SAP EAD and SAP Power Designer

[kevin_wilson2]

Can anyone enlighten me on the differences between SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer and SAP Power Designer?

In particular I am very interested to hear which solution is on SAP's future road map for providing EA functionality...

[GeorgeMcGeachie · Accepted solution]

Hello Kevin

SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer (EAD) is essentially the same as the PowerDesigner (PD) Web Portal. The models and repositories are compatible and shareable.

Up to the release of PD16.7 the key difference between the two was the fact that EAD users could edit more types of models than PD users in a web browser. In PD 16.7 SAP flicked a few switches from 'off' to 'on', allowing us PD users to edit more types of model.

My understanding is that EAD is on the way out. If web-only functionality is what you want and you don't need the extra capabilities provided by the client (though most people do need them) you could manage with the PD Web portal for most users. Your administrators will definitely need to have the client software installed.

[Ondrej_Divis]

EAD was created as a "fork" of PD Web client. However, PD Web and EAD are slightly becoming different tools. EAD runs only on HANA as repository and still can do only a part of what PD thick client is capable of. If you need to design and develop DWH within 20 team members who spend 8 hours a day by designing tables and mappings, I`d suggest using PowerDesigner. If you already have HANA and using cloud solution is more important for you than features of the tool, then you could start comparing EAD and PowerDesigner. From my point of view, PowerDesigner is clear choice. And I bet that hardcore users (=users who spend significant amount of time reading or modifying models) will tell you the same.