when-to-use-sql-server-native-client.md

title	When to Use
description	Decide whether to use SQL Server Native Client, which is one of several technologies that you can use to access data in a SQL Server database.
author	markingmyname
ms.author	maghan
ms.date	03/14/2017
ms.service	sql
ms.subservice	native-client
ms.topic	reference
helpviewer_keywords	SQL Server Native Client ODBC driver, about SQL Server Native Client ODBC driver SQLNCLI, about SQL Server Native Client data access [SQL Server Native Client], about SQL Server Native Client

When to Use SQL Server Native Client

[!INCLUDESQL Server Azure SQL Database Synapse Analytics PDW]

Important

[!INCLUDEsnac-removed-oledb-and-odbc]

[!INCLUDEssNoVersion] Native Client is one technology that you can use to access data in a [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] database. For a discussion of the different data-access technologies, see Data Access Technologies Road Map

When deciding whether to use [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] Native Client as the data access technology of your application, you should consider several factors.

For new applications, if you're using a managed programming language such as Microsoft Visual C# or Visual Basic, and you need to access the new features in [!INCLUDEssNoVersion], you should use the .NET Framework Data Provider for [!INCLUDEssNoVersion], which is part of the .NET Framework.

If you are developing a COM-based application and need to access the new features introduced in [!INCLUDEssNoVersion], you should use [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] Native Client. If you don't need access to the new features of [!INCLUDEssNoVersion], you can continue to use Windows Data Access Components (WDAC).

For existing OLE DB and ODBC applications, the primary issue is whether you need to access the new features of [!INCLUDEssNoVersion]. If you have a mature application that does not need the new features of [!INCLUDEssNoVersion], you can continue to use WDAC. But if you do need to access those new features, such as the xml data type, you should use [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] Native Client.

Both [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] Native Client and MDAC support read committed transaction isolation using row versioning, but only [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] Native Client supports snapshot transaction isolation. (In programming terms, read committed transaction isolation with row versioning is the same as Read-Committed transaction.)

For information about the differences between [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] Native Client and MDAC, see Updating an Application to SQL Server Native Client from MDAC.

See Also

SQL Server Native Client Programming
ODBC How-to Topics
OLE DB How-to Topics