A clean core describes a system that is as close to standard as possible while running cloud-compliant extensions and integrations.  It allows you to adapt your system to changing business requirements to adopt new capabilities.

Strong governance is required for each technical dimension of clean core.

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Understand how SAP Cloud ALM supports the five Clean Core principles!

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Business Processes

What is a "clean" process?

Keep competitiveness while reducing complexity

  • Enhance SAP standard solutions only if competitive advantages can be achieved
  • Use recommended SAP Reference Solution Architecture
  • Implement SAP Best Practices

SAP Cloud ALM capabilities:

  • SAP methodology for clean core with corresponding Quality Gates
  • Modeling, requirement and documentation management to design customer-specific processes 
  • Analytics and traceability dashboards to track the compliance with clean core criteria
  • Business process monitoring and job and automation monitoring

Extensibility

What are "good" extensions?

Decouple extensions from SAP standard

  • Follow the upgrade-stable extensibility model
  • Extend on stack or side-by-side with SAP BTP
  • Set up strong extension governance
  • Avoid extensions when possible

SAP Cloud ALM capabilities:

  • SAP Readiness Check to identify simplification items, custom code and add-ons
  • Agile build process for extensions
  • Central documentation and testing of extensions
  • Management and deployment of ABAP and BTP extensions
  • Instrumentation for monitoring of extensions

Data

What is "clean" data?

Control data following latest standards

  • Improve accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, validity, and uniqueness of your data
  • Control data volume to avoid outdated, unused, or redundant information
  • Store personal master data only with justifiable purposes

SAP Cloud ALM capabilities:

  • SAP Readiness Check to track the resolution of data quality issues (e.g. financial data quality)
  • Integration monitoring of end-to-end message processing, events and business objects
  • Data volume management to identify savings potential

Integration

What is "clean" integration?

Keep the landscape reliable and flexible

  • Use standard APIs (OData and SOAP) and avoid traditional APIs (RFC and IDoc)
  • Aim for side-by-side extensibility with API integration or SAP Integration Suite
  • Build loosely coupled integrations in an event-driven design based on standard events
  • Ensure monitoring and error resolution using SAP Application Interface Framework

SAP Cloud ALM capabilities:

  • Central documentation of integrations
  • Integrated management of CPI transports
  • Integration monitoring of end-to-end message processing, events and business objects
  • Exception monitoring to identify errors

Operations

What are "clean" operations?

Keep operations effective and efficient

  • Integrate monitoring use cases into operations
  • Always target the latest SAP release within your release management
  • Pursue best practice housekeeping activities according to defined roles and responsibilities
  • Agree that SAP performs maintenance within contractual maintenance periods (CMPs)

SAP Cloud ALM capabilities:

  • Full-stack monitoring based on the following use cases:
    • Processes: Business process monitoring and job and automation monitoring
    • Integration: Integration monitoring and exception monitoring
    • Monitoring of extensions: Health monitoring, real & synthetic user monitoring
    • Data: Integration monitoring
  • Business Service Management to align SAP maintenance events with your business downtimes
  • SAP Readiness Check for SAP S/4HANA upgrades to identify custom code and add-ons
  • Automated regression testing to manage change or upgrade events
  • Release management to bundle and track all change and testing activities

Key takeaways: ​SAP Cloud ALM and clean core

  • A clean core helps customers to stay current with innovation from SAP
  • SAP Cloud ALM helps customers to adopt clean core principles
  • Customers build differentiating processes and functionality using side-by-side or built in extensions
  • Data quality and clean core compliant integrations are a must
  • End to end monitoring drives business continuity and quality of process execution