Is Named Pipes a requirement for Sharepoint

We are encountering below message

"A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server)"

I've read a number of articles regarding this error and all solutions point to enabling Named Pipes protocol. I've also read that Named Pipes is not necessary for Sharepoint 2010. We checked the SQL Server and the named pipes is indeed disabled, but the administrators insisted it to remain disabled.

So how are we to configure Sharepoint to use TCP/IP instead of Named Pipes?

Thanks in advance.