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Have you ever wondered where to start to understand more about the benefits of a clean core for your ERP system and how to achieve one?
Then our new paper on Clean core extensibility for SAP S/4HANA Cloud is for you! It brings you in-depth insights into the clean core concept and its implementation, including also links to resources to move into execution.
Our aim is to allow you to extend your SAP Cloud ERP with customization as needed, while keeping the core clean, so allowing for smooth system upgrades and handling of system extensions.
Why the need for a clean core?
In today's fast-paced and ever-changing business environment, disruption across global supply chains, customer preferences, and the workforce has become a common occurrence. Businesses must quickly adapt to these changing requirements to remain relevant and thrive. At the same time, CIOs face the challenge of driving innovation and scaling efficiently while controlling costs.
Extending SAP solutions to meet specific business needs has always been a significant advantage for SAP customers. But we know that over-customization of ERP systems as it has been done in the past often leads to technical debt, making future upgrades and migration to the cloud complex.
This is an important topic for you, and we are in a continuous dialogue to evaluate best practices for ERP extensibility and to co-create the relevant technology strategy.
This is where the clean core approach comes into play: a powerful concept, model and strategy to help companies modernize their ERP systems while saving significant time and money. By adhering to the clean core principles and leveraging the powerful extensibility options provided by SAP, businesses can ensure smooth upgrades, reduce complexity, and unlock the full potential of their ERP system.
What is “clean core”?
Let’s dive a bit deeper to understand what exactly this means: An SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution has a clean core when it is up to date, documented, unmodified, consistent, efficient, and has custom extensions decoupled from SAP source code.
The clean core concept has multiple dimensions:
- Business Processes: reduce complexity, because complex processes slow down upgrade cycles
- Extensibility: decouple extensions from the standard
- Data: control the data to the latest standards, with respect to volume, cleanliness, accuracy
- Integration: keep your IT landscape reliable and flexible, using standard APIs and events
- Operations: keep your operations effective and efficient
In this blog post, we will focus on the method for maintaining this clean core while adapting SAP solutions to meet specific business needs, which is called “clean core extensibility”. Flexibility will continue to benefit you in the future if extensions are built and utilized in adherence to clean core principles. For this, SAP provides the private cloud extensibility model for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
Note: The clean core concept only applies to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, as the public cloudedition cannot be customized in its source code, only extended. For the public cloud, SAP provides the public cloud extensibility modelfor SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, which also leverages the SAP BTP.
Now, back to extending SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
Clean core principles
Building extensions in adherence to clean core principles achieves the balance between software flexibility with customer adjustments and system stability and availability in the cloud.
The main guideline is to keep extensions strictly separate from the underlying SAP applications. Extensions must access SAP business objects only through well-defined, upgrade-stable interfaces. The clean core approach, however, results not only in faster software deployment but also in easier adoption of software changes, since the core starts off clean and is kept that way using nondisruptive, regularly scheduled upgrades.
Clean core is a framework of best practices that results in keeping both the SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution and its extensions upgrade stable. Guidelines include, but are not limited to:
You will find all the guidelines, and an introduction to the associated RISE with SAP Methodology, in the chapter 2 of our white paper.
Extend SAP S/4HANA Cloud on-stack and side-by-side
Independent of which SAP S/4HANA Cloud ERP solution you choose, be it Private Edition or Public Edition, it is standard practice to support extensibility use cases with two different architectural approaches: on-stack extensibility, for extensions that are tightly coupled with your SAP S/4HANA Cloud ERP core, which means they technically run on the same stack, and side-by-side extensibility, for extensions that are loosely coupled with your ERP core and run on a separate extensibility platform, so SAP BTP in the SAP context. Usually, a combination of on-stack and side-by-side extensibility is needed to fulfill your business requirement.
But when to use what?
In chapter 3 of our white paper, we provide guidelines and recommendations to help determine what parts of the extension should run.
- on SAP S/4HANA as an on-stack extension, or
- on SAP BTP as a side-by-side extension.
We present common on-stack use case patterns that will be implemented with the ABAP Cloud development model and common use case patterns for side-by-side extensions on SAP BTP.
These recommendations apply to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, and SAP S/4HANA on premise. It helps navigate the decision-making process effectively, but it is not exhaustive. It is important to analyze each extension use case and make an informed decision about which technologies work best for each case. For more information and support, please also refer to the SAP Application Extension Methodology, the SAP BTP Guidance Framework, the extension architecture guide and the SAP BTP Developer’s Guide.
Leverage SAP Build for creating extensions
The go-to place following SAP-recommended best practices to create extensions optimized for SAP software development is SAP Build. It includes
- powerful low-code, pro-code (ABAP, Java, JavaScript), and generative AI capabilities
- enhanced interoperability with SAP S/4HANA
to empower developers and business experts to create extensions for SAP software with greater efficiency. It allows you to accelerate ERP modernization, foster innovation, and automate processes – all within a single comprehensive suite of solutions.
The Extensibility Wizard: Streamline extension of SAP S/4HANA directly from your business apps
The Extensibility Wizard is an embedded experience in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition allowing key users to extend business applications – both on stack and side by side on SAP BTP – directly out of the ERP without losing context. This wizard can be accessed from any extensible SAP S/4HANA app by clicking the "Create Extension" option available in the user menu, on top right of the screen:
For more details on how to set up the Extensibility Wizard and what extension options are available, please read this blog post: “SAP Build Extensibility Wizard for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition”.
Accelerate extension of SAP S/4HANA with AI capabilities enabled by Joule
New levels of ERP efficiency can be unlocked with the latest AI capabilities enabled by Joule in SAP Build. Joule is SAP’s AI copilot offering conversational interactions in the respective business context. Uniquely trained on SAP data and processes, it helps developers write code and design workflows for SAP S/4HANA across ABAP, Java, JavaScript, and low-code tools. As an integral part of SAP Build, Joule is the copilot for SAP development and makes developers more efficient with their development tasks for SAP S/4HANA.
Joule generates high-quality code and code explanations aligned with SAP’s programming models, thereby reducing development time for both new and experienced developers and accelerating migration to cloud ERP with a clean core.
AI capabilities enabled by Joule can also be used to extend ERP through low-code application development. Joule assists with process automation, expediting the creation of workflows for SAP S/4HANA and guiding workflow approvers with automated recommendations.
An insightful customer example: Hitachi High-Tech
To illustrate the great outcomes of a Clean Core strategy, let me share with you the story of Hitachi High-Tech, a world-class manufacturer of electron microscopes, medical devices, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. When adopting a two-tier public & private cloud ERP model for global operations, Hitachi High-Tech adopted a side-by-side approach to develop add-ons with SAP BTP outside of the ERP core.
“To keep the ERP core clean, we facilitate side-by-side development with SAP BTP in customizing and integration zones for our goal of simplified business processes” explains Takuya Sakai, General Manager, Digital Transformation Business Group.
“We previously upgraded SAP ERP version every five years>, taking about a year and a half from preparation to implementation”, says Yuri Yasuda, Manager, Corporate DX Dept. Digital Transformation Business Group. “However, we’re now able to perform major upgrades of SAP S/4HANA Cloud for our domestic group yearly and minor upgrades twice a year. We’ve also cut the time from preparation to switchover to around one month”.
Read the full Customer Success Story
How to Get Started?
First and foremost, read our white paper on Clean core extensibility for SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The last chapter of the document details the six-step path to a clean core and links to many useful resources to deep dive:
- Start with the clean core concept and definition
- Apply the concept and create your specific clean core strategy
- Analyze existing custom code (brownfield only)
- Adopt extension guidelines and methodologies
- Establish clean core governance and operations
- Build extensions
In addition, depending of the line of business you’re involved in, read our eBook presenting how to Extend SAP S/4HANA with SAP Build with use cases by LoB, including Finance, Supply chain, Sales and service, Operations and IT.
And regarding the use of SAP Build for extending your ERP, I recommend watching the replay of our SAP Build Live online event on Clean Core extensibility with SAP Build held on October 23, where our partner LeverX shared insights from a real customer use case.
In addition, I also recommend watching the replay of some SAP TechEd sessions focused on the Extensibility topic:
- DT200 | Clean core extensibility in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition
- DT280 | Build clean core extensions with ABAP Cloud for SAP S/4HANA Cloud
- AD106 | Clean core extensibility of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition with ABAP Cloud
- AD100 | Unlock SAP Build and ABAP Cloud interoperability to elevate your extensions
- AD102 | Unlock SAP S/4HANA Cloud extensibility with SAP Build
- AD180 | Build extensions with ABAP Cloud and Joule's ABAP developer capabilities
- AI104 | Revolutionize ABAP development with Joule, our generative AI copilot
Finally, we have two learnings for you:
Managing Clean Core for SAP S/4HANA Cloud will present you how to evaluate and apply clean core principles to ERP so that they can maximize business process agility, reduce adaptation efforts, and accelerate innovation. It is for beginners, takes 2 hours and is free.
Practicing Clean Core Extensibility for SAP S/4HANA Cloud will show you how to implement extensions for SAP S/4HANA Cloud consistent with clean core principles and aligned with your business use cases. It is intermediate level, takes 8 hours and is free until you choose to pass an optional certification.
Now you're ready to begin your fruitful journey to achieve Clean Core!
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