Cleaning The Clean Core
Like ogres and onions, SAP’s “clean core” messaging has layers. We’ve already peeled back some of them here and here, but there’s more to uncover.
Even though it’s still unclear whether “clean core” is a methodology or a strategy, SAP marketing has successfully convinced IT managers of its importance. And now they are doing a fine impression of the seagulls from Finding Nemo parroting the message: “Are you doing clean core? We’re doing clean core! How’s your clean core journey? Cleaning hard or hardly cleaning, eh? MINE!”
I think almost everyone agrees on the key points though. “Modifications are bad” is straight up from “no s*t Sherlock” department. And who is against using released APIs? Not me. The hiccup? Sometimes APIs are… not released. Or don’t exist. Or are half-baked.
If you think this is a task for SAP to “do the needful” and release better APIs, you must be new here. Obviously, this is a task for customers to humbly ask SAP “can I haz APIs?”. To do that, just go to this website (SID required), submit a request, wait for five other customers to vote on it, and then SAP will… uh… I’m not sure but maybe think about it? Easy peasy. And very helpful when you need to deliver functionality by Friday.
On a brighter note, there are some updates on the most frequently asked clean core questions:
I think this issue will remain open for quite some time. If you’re heavily using IDocs for EDI interfaces (other scenarios may be better suited for using OData), it’s probably best to leave them be for now—and keep poking SAP. JP
This story appeared in Issue 71 of The Boring Enterprise Nerdletter. Subscribe for more stories! https://boringenterprisenerds.substack.com
SAP Professional | Warehousing & Logistics | Supply Chain Management | Life Sciences | Education | ASUG Carolinas Chapter Chair
2 个月Idocs remain popular with customers because 1) it's a known technology that the majority of the SAP community understands, and 2) provides decent error messages (usually) and a good audit trail for troubleshooting. As someone who has spent a lot of time on the support side, SAP doesn't do a very good job of providing tips or tools for diagnosing issues when their great technology doesn't work. APIs and direct RFC connections are cool stuff - when they work. Figuring out where the failure happened when they don't work can be pretty frustrating.
Senior SAP Integration Consultant at Lindt & Sprüngli International
2 个月thank you Jelena, I also think IDocs will be around for a while still. "those?declared dead live longer"
Size up the matter.
2 个月I think the most stress is on the brownfiled SAP customers with decades of custom code wonders. For brownfield customers, custom APIs based on RAP,?SAP Gateway projects or good old SOAP + RFC function modules are still the way to go. Or SAP has convinced management to "Go Full Clean Core" and they are stuck in a suicidal greenfield implementation. Clean Core is a philosophy. In companies, it's driven by internal politics and investment. In my view, we can even "clean core"-wash the RFCs and IDocs - if the customer does not want to be in a public cloud. Well, after talking to enough SAP people this year, I have learnt that we need to look beyond the sales slides and pitches. After talking to experts outside of SAP, we see that there are many other ways to get around the "no RFC and no IDoc" approach. Like SLT https://www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/landscape-replication-server.html Best regards Volo