A persistence management system performs, at a server, operations associated with a number of applications. At the server, a persistence manager can intercept a file system call from one of the applications, wherein the file system call specifies a file located on a remote persistent storage device separate from the server. The persistence manager can determine that data belonging to the file requested by the file system call is stored on a local persistent storage device at the server, retrieve the data from the local persistent storage, and respond to the file system call from the application with the data.