Systems and methods to select an object instance from a database storage to archive to an external storage based on an archiving configuration and attribute values of the object instance, transmit the selection to an application associated with the object instance, determine, based on a response received from the application, to archive the object instance, mark the object instance as ready for archiving, identify the object instance as ready for archiving, convert the object instance to an object notation format, transmit the converted object instance to a cloud application for storage in an external storage, in response to a determination that the storage in the external storage is successful, create an index object in the database storage including a subset of fields of the object instance and a link to the converted object instance stored in the external storage, and mark the object instance in the database storage as archived.