Building Implementation Diagrams

The diagrams in this chapter allow you to model the physical environment of your system, and how its components will be deployed. PowerDesigner provides two types of diagrams for modeling your system in this way:

A component diagram represents your system decomposed into self-contained components or sub-systems. It can show the classifiers that make up these systems together with the artifacts that implement them, and exposes the interfaces offered or required by each component, and the dependencies between them. For more information, see Component Diagram Basics.
A deployment diagram allows you to represent the execution environment for a project. It describes the hardware on which each of your components will run and how that hardware is connected together. For more information, see Deployment Diagram Basics.

Component Diagram Basics
A component diagram is a UML diagram that provides a graphical view of the dependencies and generalizations among software components, including source code components, binary code components, and executable components.
Deployment Diagram Basics
A deployment diagram is a UML diagram that provides a graphical view of the physical configuration of run-time elements of your system.
Components (OOM)
A component is a physical, replaceable part of a system that packages implementation, conforms to and provides the realization of a set of interfaces. It can represent a physical piece of implementation of a system, like software code (source, binary or executable), scripts, or command files. It is an independent piece of software developed for a specific purpose but not a specific application. It may be built up from the class diagram and written from scratch for the new system, or it may be imported from other projects and third party vendors.
Nodes (OOM)
A node is the main element of the deployment diagram. It is a physical element that represents a processing resource, a real physical unit, or physical location of a deployment (computer, printer, or other hardware units).
Component Instances (OOM)
A component instance is an instance of a component that can run or execute on a node. Whenever a component is processed into a node, a component instance is created. The component instance plays an important role because it contains the parameter for deployment into a server.
Files (OOM)
A file object can be a bitmap file used for documentation, or it can be a file containing text that is used for deployment into a server.
Node Associations (OOM)
You can create associations between nodes, called node associations. They are defined with a role name and a multiplicity at each end. An association between two nodes means that the nodes communicate with each other, for example when a server is sending data to a backup server.