The illustrative embodiments described herein provide a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for managing memory in a shared environment. Upon receiving a file open event associated with a file, a tag value is generated based on the attributes of the file. Upon receiving a file read or write event associated with the file, a memory object is created to hold data associated with the file. The tag value is associated with the memory object. The tag value and the associated memory object are provided to a virtual hosting platform layer as hints to the underlying page coalescing mechanisms.