Introducing SAP Note 3690029 – Integration Technol...

SAP Note 3690029 – Integration Technologies and Frameworks in Context of Clean Core Integration is now available. This blog post gives a quick overview of the note, the reasoning behind it, and how it fits next to its well-known sibling, SAP Note 3578329 for extensibility.

Why a dedicated integration note?

When customers and partners plan their journey to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition (and ultimately to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition), one question keeps coming back:

“I want to use interface technology X – is that still considered Clean Core?”

Until now, the only widely referenced answer was SAP Note 3578329 – Frameworks, Technologies and Development Patterns in Context of Clean Core Extensibility. That note is excellent – but it was written for extensibility use cases. In day-to-day projects it has been increasingly applied to integration scenarios as well, which led to misinterpretations, and a fair amount of uncertainty in the field about what is and isn't a clean integration.

A dedicated, official statement for integration technologies was needed and that is what SAP Note 3690029 delivers.

What does the new note provide?

SAP Note 3690029 introduces a level-based Clean Core integration model and classifies the most commonly used interface technologies, protocols, and patterns according to two criteria:

Public Cloud readiness: is the technology supported in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition?
Modern integration standards: is it based on established cloud and internet standards, and does it align with modern approaches like event-driven architecture (EDA) and an API-managed strategy?

Each technology is rated on the same A / B / C / D scale already known from the extensibility note:

Level A – Strategic, cloud-ready, modern. Always the first choice
Level B – Works today, but plan to move on. Limited cloud readiness or limited alignment with modern standards
Level C – Legacy, no cloud migration path. Only acceptable in clearly bounded on-premise scenarios
Level D – Avoid in any new design

The same simple rules apply as for extensibility:

Stay clean: choose the highest level available for the use case.
Get clean: from the current level, plan the move to the next higher one.

How is this different from SAP Note 3578329?

The two notes complement each other and do not overlap. If a framework or technology touches both worlds (a classic example: IDoc integration combined with an IDoc extension), the rule of thumb is simple:

SAP Note 3690029 is used to choose the right integration technology.
SAP Note 3578329 is used to implement the extension in a clean way.

Clean Core principle	Integration	Extensibility
Typical question	“How is S/4HANA accessed from another system?”	“How is S/4HANA itself extended?”
Example use case	Calling a released OData / web service / IDoc / BAPI from an external system	Implementing a BAdI, creating a custom CDS view

The decision tree below(also attached to the note captures the flow at a glance:

Decision tree – when to apply SAP Note 3690029 vs. SAP Note 3578329

Is a released API/event on SAP Business Accelerator Hub or a standard SAP integration scenario available and sufficient? → Use it, Cleanest possible option.
If not, hand over to extensibility for any local change. If standard extension points exist, they should be used and the Cloudification Repository should be followed.
If no SAP standard content exists at all, SAP Note 3578329 should be followed, and only as a last resort should a custom interface be built, still respecting Clean Core extensibility guidelines.

How to use the note in projects

A few practical recommendations:

Apply it during integration assessment, Whenever a new interface is scoped, the technology should be looked up in the table and the resulting Clean Core level documented as part of the architecture decision.
Reassess regularly, Released APIs and events are continuously added to the SAP Business Accelerator Hub. What is Level B today might have a Level A successor tomorrow.
Combine the note with the right tooling:
- SAP Business Accelerator Hub – the catalog of released remote APIs and events, including documentation and versioning.
- SAP Help Portal – integration and modernization guides plus release information for SAP S/4HANA remote APIs and business events.
- Cloudification Repository – object-level release state and Clean Core classification
Do not forget upgrade stability. Because upgrade stability depends on the release status of the underlying ABAP object, it is intentionally not part of the integration level rating. Cross-checking with SAP Business Accelerator Hub, the Cloudification Repository, and SAP Note 3578329 is recommended.

What's next?

The note is a living document. The current version focuses on integration technologies available in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition. Future updates will: