title: What are the pros and cons of OleDB versus SQLClient?
body: <p>Some context: one of the systems I'm working on is a .net 2.0 web application.  VB.net for the front end, and SQL Server 2005 for the backend.  For a variety of reasons that have been lost to time, the original designer decided to use the .Net OleDB connection rather than the SQLClient connection.</p>
  
  <p>After a few years of development, this particular system is on the cusp of crossing the line from "beta" into "1.0" status.  One of the things we've been talking about at this point is moving to the SQLClient connection.  While I'm aware that it's best practice to be using it, and that it's the only way to get at the fancier features in SQL Server 2005 (which we aren't using, obviously) what are the advantages of using the one over the other?  Any hidden gotchas I should know about?  And can anyone point me at some benchmarks showing relative speeds?  (I hear that the SQLClient is supposed to be faster, but I've never seen any numbers to back that  up.)</p>
  
  <p>Thanks, all.</p>