SSHFS
I just discovered SSHFS [1] today. If a server that you
typically pull and push files from supports SFTP
(most do just by virtue of giving SSH access), then you can
setup a FUSE filesystem on your local workstation to access
the files on it as if it were an NFS mount or similar.
This is especially handy if you use key-based login for SSH
(and you should!). You can add a line to your fstab file and
mount your remote directories seamlessly on startup without
fussing with NFS or similar technologies.
[1]
https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs