The general trend of contemporary Java application frameworks is towards the separation of data storage from data processing, aiming to be more maintainable, scalable, and migratable. One typical example is the currently hot microservices. The new framework requires that business logic, rather than performed in the database as the conventional framework designs, should be implemented within the Java program.
On most occasions, the business logic in an application involves structured data processing. Databases (based on SQL) give a lot of support for the processing, enabling to implement business logic in a relatively simple way. Such support, however, has always been absent in Java, making it complicated and inefficient to implement the business logic with the language. As a result, development efficiency becomes sharply lower while the advantages of the framework are clear.