diff --git a/swift/common/utils.py b/swift/common/utils.py
index f2e186c03e..59c9ee7c3c 100644
--- a/swift/common/utils.py
+++ b/swift/common/utils.py
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@ import ctypes.util
 import fcntl
 import struct
 from ConfigParser import ConfigParser
+from tempfile import mkstemp
+import cPickle as pickle
+
 
 import eventlet
 from eventlet import greenio, GreenPool, sleep, Timeout, listen
@@ -510,8 +513,8 @@ def unlink_older_than(path, mtime):
     """
     Remove any file in a given path that that was last modified before mtime.
 
-    :param path: Path to remove file from
-    :mtime: Timestamp of oldest file to keep
+    :param path: path to remove file from
+    :mtime: timestamp of oldest file to keep
     """
     if os.path.exists(path):
         for fname in os.listdir(path):
@@ -524,6 +527,14 @@ def unlink_older_than(path, mtime):
 
 
 def item_from_env(env, item_name):
+    """
+    Get a value from the wsgi environment
+
+    :param env: wsgi environment dict
+    :param item_name: name of item to get
+
+    :returns: the value from the environment
+    """
     item = env.get(item_name, None)
     if item is None:
         logging.error("ERROR: %s could not be found in env!" % item_name)
@@ -531,10 +542,27 @@ def item_from_env(env, item_name):
 
 
 def cache_from_env(env):
+    """
+    Get memcache connection pool from the environment (which had been
+    previously set by the memcache middleware
+
+    :param env: wsgi environment dict
+
+    :returns: swift.common.memcached.MemcacheRing from environment
+    """
     return item_from_env(env, 'swift.cache')
 
 
 def readconf(conf, section_name, log_name=None):
+    """
+    Read config file and return config items as a dict
+
+    :param conf: path to config file
+    :param section_name: config section to read
+    :param log_name: name to be used with logging (will use section_name if
+                     not defined)
+    :returns: dict of config items
+    """
     c = ConfigParser()
     if not c.read(conf):
         print "Unable to read config file %s" % conf
@@ -550,3 +578,21 @@ def readconf(conf, section_name, log_name=None):
         else:
             conf['log_name'] = section_name
     return conf
+
+
+def write_pickle(obj, dest, tmp):
+    """
+    Ensure that a pickle file gets written to disk.  The file
+    is first written to a tmp location, ensure it is synced to disk, then
+    perform a move to its final location
+
+    :param obj: python object to be pickled
+    :param dest: path of final destination file
+    :param tmp: path to tmp to use
+    """
+    fd, tmppath = mkstemp(dir=tmp)
+    with os.fdopen(fd, 'wb') as fo:
+        pickle.dump(obj, fo)
+        fo.flush()
+        os.fsync(fd)
+        renamer(tmppath, dest)
diff --git a/swift/obj/server.py b/swift/obj/server.py
index 49f707bdb3..1120d21f48 100644
--- a/swift/obj/server.py
+++ b/swift/obj/server.py
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ from eventlet import sleep, Timeout
 
 from swift.common.utils import mkdirs, normalize_timestamp, \
     storage_directory, hash_path, renamer, fallocate, \
-    split_path, drop_buffer_cache, get_logger
+    split_path, drop_buffer_cache, get_logger, write_pickle
 from swift.common.bufferedhttp import http_connect
 from swift.common.constraints import check_object_creation, check_mount, \
     check_float, check_xml_encodable
@@ -300,15 +300,13 @@ class ObjectController(object):
                 '%s:%s/%s transaction %s (saving for async update later)' %
                 (ip, port, contdevice, headers_in.get('x-cf-trans-id', '-')))
         async_dir = os.path.join(self.devices, objdevice, ASYNCDIR)
-        fd, tmppath = mkstemp(dir=os.path.join(self.devices, objdevice, 'tmp'))
-        with os.fdopen(fd, 'wb') as fo:
-            pickle.dump({'op': op, 'account': account, 'container': container,
-                         'obj': obj, 'headers': headers_out}, fo)
-            fo.flush()
-            os.fsync(fd)
-            ohash = hash_path(account, container, obj)
-            renamer(tmppath, os.path.join(async_dir, ohash[-3:], ohash + '-' +
-                normalize_timestamp(headers_out['x-timestamp'])))
+        ohash = hash_path(account, container, obj)
+        write_pickle(
+            {'op': op, 'account': account, 'container': container,
+                'obj': obj, 'headers': headers_out},
+            os.path.join(async_dir, ohash[-3:], ohash + '-' +
+                normalize_timestamp(headers_out['x-timestamp'])),
+            os.path.join(self.devices, objdevice, 'tmp'))
 
     def POST(self, request):
         """Handle HTTP POST requests for the Swift Object Server."""
diff --git a/swift/obj/updater.py b/swift/obj/updater.py
index 22f259feae..3d6a15cc4f 100644
--- a/swift/obj/updater.py
+++ b/swift/obj/updater.py
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ from eventlet import patcher, Timeout
 from swift.common.bufferedhttp import http_connect
 from swift.common.exceptions import ConnectionTimeout
 from swift.common.ring import Ring
-from swift.common.utils import get_logger, renamer
+from swift.common.utils import get_logger, renamer, write_pickle
 from swift.common.daemon import Daemon
 from swift.obj.server import ASYNCDIR
 
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ class ObjectUpdater(Daemon):
             self.failures += 1
             self.logger.debug('Update failed for %s %s' % (obj, update_path))
             update['successes'] = successes
-            pickle.dump(update, open(update_path,'w'))
+            write_pickle(update, update_path, os.path.join(device, 'tmp'))
 
     def object_update(self, node, part, op, obj, headers):
         """
diff --git a/test/unit/obj/test_updater.py b/test/unit/obj/test_updater.py
index dc0dd7129f..9887c6fcaf 100644
--- a/test/unit/obj/test_updater.py
+++ b/test/unit/obj/test_updater.py
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ class TestObjectUpdater(unittest.TestCase):
         os.mkdir(self.devices_dir)
         self.sda1 = os.path.join(self.devices_dir, 'sda1')
         os.mkdir(self.sda1)
+        os.mkdir(os.path.join(self.sda1,'tmp'))
 
     def tearDown(self):
         rmtree(self.testdir, ignore_errors=1)