It wasn't the transition to NoSQL. It was the transition to web APIs. Now the application that can access the database has a universal shim in place that deals

It wasn't the transition to NoSQL. It was the transition to web APIs. Now the application that can access the database has a universal shim in place that deals with the messy business of taking requests and applying them to the data store. Now there's typically three applications that need DB access: 1. The application it was built for. 2. The read-only reporting and visualization tools. 3. The web API.