1. A computer-implemented method comprising: receiving an identification of an instance of a business object to archive; searching for information defining the business object in an enterprise service repository; and generating a schema for the type definition and a definition of the instance of the business object in accordance with the schema, the schema being in accordance with a platform-independent file format comprising information reflecting the hierarchy of the business object, and the generating the schema and the definition comprising: generating in the schema hierarchy levels to reflect each hierarchy level of the business object, each hierarchy level, with the exception of hierarchy levels including references to stand-alone business objects, to have the respective attributes of the hierarchy level of the business object, and the format of generating in the schema hierarchy levels being the same for other business objects of a same data type; and generating instance data to reflect the instance of the business object, the instance data being in accordance with the schema.