The following connection options can enhance driver performance. You can also enhance performance through efficient application design. See "Designing ODBC Applications for Performance Optimization" for details.
Application Using Threads (ApplicationUsingThreads): The driver coordinates concurrent database operations (operations from different threads) by acquiring locks. Although locking prevents errors in the driver, it also decreases performance. If your application does not make ODBC calls from different threads, the driver has no reason to coordinate operations. In this case, the ApplicationUsingThreads attribute should be disabled (set to 0).
Note: If you are using a multi-threaded application, you must enable the Application Using Threads option.
Connection Pooling (Pooling): If you enable the driver to use connection pooling, you can set additional options that affect performance:
Load Balance Timeout (LoadBalanceTimeout): You can define how long to keep connections in the pool. The time that a connection was last used is compared to the current time and, if the timespan exceeds the value of the Load Balance Timeout option, the connection is destroyed. The Min Pool Size option can cause some connections to ignore this value.
Connection Reset (ConnectionReset): Resetting a re-used connection to the initial configuration settings impacts performance negatively because the connection must issue additional commands to the server.
Max Pool Size (MaxPoolSize): Setting the maximum number of connections that the pool can contain too low might cause delays while waiting for a connection to become available. Setting the number too high wastes resources.
Min Pool Size (MinPoolSize): A connection pool is created when the first connection with a unique connection string connects to the database. The pool is populated with connections up to the minimum pool size, if one has been specified. The connection pool retains this number of connections, even when some connections exceed their Load Balance Timeout value.
Encryption Method (EncryptionMethod): Data encryption may adversely affect performance because of the additional overhead (mainly CPU usage) that is required to encrypt and decrypt data.
Failover Mode (FailoverMode): Although high availability that replays queries after a failure provides increased levels of protection, it can adversely affect performance because of increased overhead.
Load Balance Timeout (LoadBalanceTimeout): You can define how long to keep connections in the pool. The time that a connection was last used is compared to the current time and, if the timespan exceeds the value of the Load Balance Timeout option, the connection is destroyed. The Min Pool Size option can cause some connections to ignore this value.