Access Permissions On Server Scoped Objects For Login

We are having problems with the response times from UPS WorldShip after switching from SQL Server 2000 to 2005.


I think that the problem can be fixed from the database end by setting the permissions correctly for the user/role/schema that is being used by WorldShip to connect to the server but, I'm not sure how to do it.

The Setup

Client
UPS WorldShip 8.0 running on XP Pro SP2
Connecting via Sql Native Client via SQL Server Login
Connection is over a T1 via VPN

Server -
SQL Server Standard Edition on Windows Server 2003
2x3ghz Xeon processors w/ 4gb ram

The user that is being used to connect runs under it's own schema and role and only needs access to two tables in a specific database on the server.

What UPS WorldShip seems to be doing is on a continual basis retrieving information about the layout of the database via calls such as the following

exec [sys].sp_tables NULL,NULL,NULL,N'''VIEW''',@fUsePattern=1

exec [webservices].[sys].sp_columns_90 N'CHECK_CONSTRAINTS',N'INFORMATION_SCHEMA',N'webservices',NULL,@fUsePattern=1

exec [webservices].[sys].sp_columns_90 N'COLUMN_DOMAIN_USAGE',N'INFORMATION_SCHEMA',N'webservices',NULL,@fUsePattern=1

This seems to happen whenever WorldShip contacts the database to find out information in order to be able to create a mapping to the database as well as exporting information to it. Because of the VPN connection these calls take anywhere from 20 seconds to 3 minutes.

I am fairly confident that the problem lies with these calls to the database which I was able to capture using the SQL Server Profiler. We have experimented with the following setups.

1. Connecting to SQL 2000 over VPN with SQL Native Client - No noticeable lag
2. Connecting to SQL 2000 over VPN with SQL Server 2000 driver - No Noticable lag
3. Connecting to SQL 2005 locally with SQL Native Client - No Noticable lag
4. Connectiong to SQL 2005 over VPN with SQL Native Client - Lots of lag

Our network admin has been testing the network connections over the VPN and it is very responsive with none of the long wait times found when using UPS WorldShip.


Now for a possible solution other than getting UPS to fix their software. I think that by limiting the tables and views that the login is able to see will cut down significantly on the lag times that are being experienced. The problem is that there were 264 items that were being returned by sp_tables. I was able to cut that down to 154. I am unable to disable access to any of the rest of the items because they are server scoped.

Take for example the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.CHECK_CONSTRAINTS view. When I try to deny access to it in any way I get the following error:

Permissions on server scoped catalog views or system stored procedures or extended stored procedures can be granted only when the current database is master (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 4629)


Am I able to deny access to these types of object and if so how? Also, what objects should be accessable such as sys.database_mirroring, sys.database_recovery_status, etc?