Disclosed are methods and apparatus for efficiently storing application data received from clients in a database stored on a server, such as a cloud-based database. The methods include receiving a batch of a plurality of web operations that specify actions to be performed on data objects that represent application data stored in a cloud database, translating the web operations to a batch of data storage operation sets, creating a temporary database having a subset of contents of the cloud database, applying the data storage operation sets to the temporary database, recording database operations generated by the temporary database based on the plurality of data storage operation sets, and applying the plurality of database operations to the cloud database in a transaction. Translating the web operations can include mapping the actions to be performed on the data objects to transactions to be performed on the cloud database.