I agree with you. ORM is for business domain object that you know of, are certain of, have clear definition of, and are the core data structures for your app. If you have to explore data in unintended ways, result-set mapper is useful. Another option is to provide an analysis tool that weaves into your app allowing you to run result-set mapper queries against your data source without having to make it part of your data access strategy in your application. Just a thought. Spring+JPA is designed for business, boring relational business, 99% of the time.