When migrating an SSP I typically use the STSADM commands to backup and restore my SSP. However, in this particular environment we had issues with the SharePoint farms being on different versions, thus we had to use the tools within Central Administration. The following are the steps I followed during the restore. I felt it necessary to document this process since the following Technet article was not sufficient for my needs. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc896556%28office.12%29.aspx

1. SharePoint farms should be the same version but this process is possible if they are not. (In fact this was the only process where the versions could be different)
2. Make sure the FarmAdmin on the destination farm is the same as the source farm. You may need to change your configrations to ensure they are the same.
3. Prepare the Destination Farm
1. Login as the FarmAdmin account
2. Create Web Application for your SSP
3. Create Web Application for your MySite
4. Start the Search Services
4. Backup SSP from Source Farm
1. From Central Administration > Operations >Perform a Backup
2. Select your SSP & click Continue to Backup Options
3. Choose Full and enter a UNC path to locate your SSP backup
5. Copy over the SSP backup files from the Source Farm to Destination Farm
6. Make sure the permissions are correct on the folder where you placed the SSP backup. (I kept experiencing permission issues so I just granted everyone full control during this process and then removed those permissions when completed.)
7. Stop the Search Services on the Destination Farm
8. Restore the SSP
1. Operations > Restore from Backup
2. Enter the UNC path of where the SSP backup files are located and click OK
3. Select the correct backup and click Continue Restore Process
4. Select the SSP and click Continue Restore Process
5. 
6. After restoring the SSP, then proceed to make the necessary farm changes. (Accounts, Permissions, Search Configs, Profiles, etc)

All the information about hotfixes and updates, as well as upgrade approaches can be found at the SharePoint 2010 updates page

http://blog.armgasys.com/?p=80

http://www.sharepointsharon.com/2010/11/sharepoint-managed-metadata-overview/

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/introduction-to-managed-metadata-in-sharepoint-server-2010-HA101859256.aspx

Backup-SPFarm -Directory <UNC path to backup folder> -BackupMethod full -Item “<Path to services>” -verbose

Example: Backup-SPFarm -Directory \\spappserver\backups -BackupMethod full -Item “Farm\Shared Services\Shared Services Applications” -verbose

1. Install the Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms on the Index Server. http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4025

2. Add the Adobe PATH to your environment variables: After installing the PDF IFilter it is recommended that you set your system PATH environment variable to ‘bin’ folder of ‘Ifilter’ installation. (Index Server)

• From the ‘Control Panel\System\Advanced\Environment Variables’ tab, append to PATH: ‘C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe PDF iFilter 9 for 64-bit platforms\bin\’
• Restart the machine

3. Check the Registry settings (Index Server)

• In the registry editor go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdf.
• Modify or create the key and replace the values with the following.Name = DefaultType = <REG_MULTI_SZ>Data = {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}
• In the registry editor go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\Search\Setup\ContentIndexCommon\Filters\Extension\.pdf
• Modify or create the entry and replace the values with the following.Name = DefaultType = <REG_MULTI_SZ>Data = {E8978DA6-047F-4E3D-9C78-CDBE46041603}

4. Configure the PDF icon (All SharePoint Servers)

• Download a pdf icon file. The dimensions need to be 16×16. Just do a search on google for icpdf.gif, remember 16×16.
• Copy the .gif file to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES.
• Add an entry in DOCICON.XML for the pdf icon in the following location:C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\XML. The following entry needs to be added to the  <ByExtension> section of the DOCICON.XML file. <Mapping Key=”pdf” Value=”<name of file>”/> *This file is case sensitive…make sure you are using uppercase M,K, and V.

5. Restart Services at command promp (Index Server)

• Open command prompt – runas administrator
• Search: From a commandline type “net stop osearch” once completed then start the service by “net start osearch”.
• IIS: Restart IIS by typing “iisreset”

So the process of configuring kerberos has/could change with IIS7.  If we decided to setup SPN’s like we have done in the past then we need to make a minor adjustment to IIS. Otherwise, we can change our SPN configurations along with some IIS changes. From my understanding that later is suggested by Microsoft. This blog entry on MSDN should clear up the steps.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webtopics/archive/2009/01/19/service-principal-name-spn-checklist-for-kerberos-authentication-with-iis-7-0.aspx

In PowerShell, type the following command and adjust the name as required;
New-SPServiceApplicationProxyGroup –Name “Project 2010 Proxy Group”

Edit:

Central Administration > Application Management > Configure Service Application Association

From here if you click on the web application then you can assign a proxy group and if you click on the proxy group then you can change the associations.

Additional Tips on setting up UPS

• Login under the farm administrative account before starting the configuration
• Activity Feeds: If you want users to be able to add to their feeds, you will need to enable this time job. Central Administration > Monitoring > Review Job Definition > “UPS Name” – Activity Feed Job
• Is your Domain running on 2003? You may experience the following error: “UserProfileApplication.SynchronizeMIIS: Failed to configure ILM, will attempt during next rerun. Exception: System.SecurityException: Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.” In my particular case I was able to resolve this by making the farm account and sql agent account members of the “Pre-Windows 2000 Compatible Access” group.
• You cannot have more than one User profile service application running in a single server environment. (Don’t ask, I have no idea)

Editing the User Profile Properties:

• Do not delete properties. I know you will be tempted but it is not worth the trouble. If you happen to remove a property that is embedded on the page, your profile page will not load and you will be forced to recreate the UPS or edit the profile page and remove those elements. You will not be able to recreate the properties.

People Search Tips:

Give access to search to crawl the profile content

1. Change the content access account; Application Management > Manage Service Applications > Search Service, click on the default content access account and change it.
2. Navigate to Application Management > Manage Service Applications and select the user profile service application.
3. Click on Administrators in the ribbon
4. Add the search service account
5. Grant the account “Retrieve Data for Search Crawling”

Access is Denied error

Access is denied. Verify that either the Default Content Access Account has access to this repository, or add a crawl rule to crawl this repository. If the repository being crawled is a SharePoint repository, verify that the account you are using has “Full Read” permissions on the SharePoint Web Application being crawled.

1. First do as the error says; check that search service account and default content access account have access to the web applications. This should already be done but it might be good to check.
2. Central Administration > Application Management > Manage Web Applications > Select each web application.
3. Click on “User Policy”
4. Confirm that the proper accounts are listed. If not, add the search service and default content access account and give them “Full Read” permissions.
5. Central Admin -> Application Management- > Manage Service Applications.  Select the ‘user profile service application’ and click the Administrators button in the ribbon.  Add your account that you want to be able to manage user contexts, and grant them at least the Manage Profiles right but I would suggest you to add also ‘Retrieve Data for Search Crawling’ .

Still not working, Disable the Loopback check (Yes, this still exists even in 2010)

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
3. Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer.

Shane’s blog

Microsoft KB Article: You cannot upload files that are larger than 28 MB on a Windows Server 2008-based computer that is running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0