A method for creating an archive protection plan for archiving a backup of physical protectable objects in a data protection system, by automating a protection of a computer system even if changes to the system occur, wherein the data protection system provides users with a logical representation of the physical protectable objects (103, 111, 121), the physical protectable objects including one of the following: a folder, file, electronic mailbox, database, website, the logical representation including namespace elements (405, 407, 409, 411, 413, 415, 421, 423, 425), wherein each namespace element is used to locate at least one protectable object, the data protection system utilizing a schema for mapping namespace elements to physical protectable objects, the method comprising: receiving from the user a selection of namespace elements and a protection intent a protection intent being a high level description of how selected data is to be protected, wherein a protection template having default properties is selected by a user for identifying the protection intent, the protection intent including an indication of an archive data protection kind and an indication of an archive data protection duration in order to identify how the user wants to have the associated protectable objects protected; creating a group (930, 1030) that includes the selected namespace elements associated with one or more physical protectable objects to which the protection intent is applied; determining an archive scheme, wherein determining an archive scheme is performed by providing a default scheme to a user in order to override any portion of the provided default scheme and by receiving the data protection kind and the data protection duration; generating an archive protection plan representative of the archive scheme by translating the received protection intent into a plan for protecting the group, wherein verbs from the protection intent are used as actions for translating the intents into the plan; allocating resources necessary for providing protection for the group; and creating a checkpoint by the data protection system in order to provide a known point where an intent translation routine may restart if the routine does not complete successfully. receiving from the user a selection of namespace elements and a protection intent a protection intent being a high level description of how selected data is to be protected, wherein a protection template having default properties is selected by a user for identifying the protection intent, the protection intent including an indication of an archive data protection kind and an indication of an archive data protection duration in order to identify how the user wants to have the associated protectable objects protected; creating a group (930, 1030) that includes the selected namespace elements associated with one or more physical protectable objects to which the protection intent is applied; determining an archive scheme, wherein determining an archive scheme is performed by providing a default scheme to a user in order to override any portion of the provided default scheme and by receiving the data protection kind and the data protection duration; generating an archive protection plan representative of the archive scheme by translating the received protection intent into a plan for protecting the group, wherein verbs from the protection intent are used as actions for translating the intents into the plan; allocating resources necessary for providing protection for the group; and creating a checkpoint by the data protection system in order to provide a known point where an intent translation routine may restart if the routine does not complete successfully.