Can FireDac connect to SQL Server without ODBC?

Question

I am using RAD Studio XE8, C++ Builder, FireDac, on Windows 8.1.

I am connecting to SQL Server 2012 on a virtual machine located on my network.

When I connect FireDac is using ODBC. Here is the driver signature that FireDac reports.

[FireDAC][Phys][ODBC][Microsoft][SQL Server Native Client 11.0][SQL Server]

I can also see that odbc dlls are loaded with my program. I run the same program using DBX and the dbxmss.dll interfaces directly with the sql native dll and the performance is noticeably better. Is there a better way to connect to SQL Server with FireDac or am I stuck going through ODBC?

Answer 1

I don't think you will find a better way than connecting through the SQL Server Native Client . Just don't worry about that ODBC word in that driver signature. ODBC is just the name of the standard API which is used here to consume that native client library. There is no extra bridge here.

By that signature FireDAC says a SQL Server Native Client library will be interfaced by ODBC API. But by direct exported C function calls of that client DLL.