Globally available resources have become the status quo. They're accessible, distributed, and resilient. Our traditional SQL database options haven't kept up. Centralized SQL databases, even those with read replicas in the cloud, put all the transactional load on a central system. The further away that a transaction happens from the user, the more the user experience suffers. If the transactional data powering the application is greatly slowed down, fast-loading web pages mean nothing.