[mumblemumble]

Also not the author, but I have seen some success here when the database is used as another way to build a service with an API, and not just a simple data store. What that means in practice is that applications interact exclusively through stored procedures, which serve as a sort of RPC API.

The big downside of this approach are that the human factors are tricky nowadays. Developers expect to be allowed to poke at the tables directly, and don't necessarily take kindly to alternative ways of framing things. Especially if they've been raised on a diet of code-first object relational mapping. And there's not really a great way to enforce this boundary, because, unlike HTTP, an ODBC session will generally let you pretty much anything you want to the remote service's implementation details.