SAP Clean Core Strategy Whitepaper

Your No-Nonsense Guide to SAP’s Clean Core Strategy and How to Make It Stick.

TA practical guide to SAP Clean Core strategy for enterprises mid-transformation. From the only side-by-side and on-stack extension platform SAP-certified at Clean Core Level C for S/4 HANA Cloud Private Edition.

Why this Whitepaper is worth 7 minutes of your time:

SAP ECC mainstream maintenance ends December 31, 2027. Most SAP customers are now mid-flight on their S/4 HANA program, and Clean Core has moved from architectural recommendation to board-level mandate. The question every CIO and SAP architect is being asked is the same: how do we modernize without losing the custom logic that runs our business? This whitepaper answers that question. It explains SAP's A-D Clean Core framework, walks through where extensions belong, and shows how Neptune DXP supports every level of the spectrum, including Level C, where most enterprise landscapes actually live.

This is what you get:

Twelve pages of guidance written for SAP architects, transformation leads, and enterprise IT leadership. You will get:

A plain-language explanation of SAP's A-D Clean Core levels and what each one means in practice
The four-step path from custom code to Clean Core compliance
A breakdown of on-stack versus side-by-side extension patterns, with the trade-offs that matter
Where Neptune DXP fits on the Clean Core spectrum and how the SAP Edition and Open Edition cover different scenarios
The full scope of Neptune's January 2026 Clean Core Level C certification, including what it covers and how to verify it in SAP's Certified Solution Directory
Customer evidence from Johnson & Johnson, Hitachi Rail, and Secil

The Clean Core misconception most teams run into.

A common assumption circulating in S/4 HANA programs is that Clean Core requires every extension to sit side-by-side at Level A. SAP's own framework says otherwise. Level C, conditionally clean, is an SAP-approved path for Private Cloud customers and certified partner add-ons that need governed access to SAP internals. Neptune DXP SAP Edition is certified at this level.

The whitepaper explains why this matters, where Level C applies, and how to choose the right extension model per use case rather than forcing one architecture across the entire landscape.

Read this whitepaper if you are: