Methods and apparatus are disclosed for serializing software objects for loading onto a cloud-hosted tenant, or for other serialized operations. Nodes and edges of a directed graph represent respective software objects and the dependencies among the software objects. A search for strongly connected components reveals cyclic dependencies. Each strongly connected component can be replaced by a contracted node to obtain a condensation of the original directed graph. A topological ordering can be determined for the condensation, and the software objects can be processed or loaded according to the topological ordering. Such ordering provides that software objects of a strongly connected component are processed consecutively while, for all other dependencies, a prerequisite object is processed (loaded) before its dependent object(s). Examples of SAP Analytics Cloud and Data Warehouse Cloud are provided. Exemplary, push and pull loading procedures, topological ordering, and validation are disclosed.