1. A method for flexible data archival using a model-driven approach in a system having a context and further having an application having content, the method comprising: a computer analyzing the application content; the computer creating a data archive specification model based on the application content, wherein the data archive specification model is created in a general-purpose visual modeling language, and wherein the data archive specification model is based on a meta-model comprising an archive operation schedule indicating whether archive data should be saved or purged; the computer transforming the data archive specification model and modeling the archive data based on graphical modeling tools; the computer generating a second data archive specification from the data archive specification model; the computer constructing an archive application based on the second data archive specification and the context; and the computer deploying the archive application to create a data archive.