SQL Server 2005 - Enabling both Named Pipes & TCP/IP protocols?

Question

We have a SQL Server 2005 database, and currently all our users are connecting to the database via the TCP/IP protocol.

The SQL Server Configuration Manager allows you to "enable" both Named Pipes, and TCP/IP connections at the same time. Is this a good idea? My question is not whether we should use named pipes instead of TCP/IP, but are there problems associated with enabling both?

One of our client's IT guys, says that enabling database communication with both protocols will limit the bandwidth that either protocol can use - to like 50% of the total. I would think that the bandwidth that TCP/IP could use would be directly tied (inversely) to the amount of traffic that Named Pipes (or any of the other types of traffic) were occupying on the network at that moment. However, this IT person is indicating that the fact that we have enabled two protocols on the server, artificially limits the bandwidth that TCP/IP can use. Is this correct?

I did Google searches but could not come up with an answer to this question. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

This is not correct. Your thought on network traffic is correct - capacity is not 'reserved'.

You should not enable named pipes if it is not needed.

Answer 2

no there is no limit on the bandwidth. the problem with named pipes is that they can be quite "chatty" in a slow network and can take a lot of bandwidth. there is a priority list of protocols to try first. but there is no internal threshold for this that i know of.