Accessing database via ODBC vs Net8 (sqlnet)

Currently our developers write VB6 apps to access our Oracle database (8.0.5 running on Solaris 2.6). They are using RDO and the Oracle ODBC drivers. Someone recently told me that at their site they were using VB apps to access their Oracle database and using the native Net8 (SQL*Net) drivers to access the database and that it was "orders of magnitude faster than ODBC".

Can someone send me in the right direction to read more about this and/or send a link to any documents on this? Also, if you know of any docs that discuss the Net8 interface and how to install/configure this so our apps can access Oracle in this fashion. I have installed the Oracle client on our PCs (which is using Net8, right?), but what else has to be done. I'm sure the programmers don't want to have to make any coding changes but I believe the person that gave me the information about Net8 native access to Oracle that they did not have to make any programming changes. I hope all this makes sense...

Any help/suggestions are appreciated!

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Jim Day
day_at_nettally.com