Some people are saying.  I’m having a problem upgrading the SSP with Database Attach upgrade.  Looks like I’m getting forced to use In-Place upgrade.

While There are some simple ways to upgrade search and single sign on with powershell scripts, the profile and audiences are more difficult.

I’ve been mentioning for some time that the way to upgrade the SSP database in a database attach method of upgrade is by using mount-spcontentdatabase.  Someone mentioned they had tried that and failed.

Ali Mazaheri has some good examples of doing this in his blog: Upgrading MOSS 2007 SSP User Profiles and My Site Content using Db Attach

There are some key pre-requisites before upgrading your SSP database:

1. Create a web app

2. Ensure the service app – managed metadata service is enabled (YES, this is a DEPENDENCY)

3. Ensure the Profile Service is up and running – and you should upgrade this database first with the special powershell cmdlet

If you are creating it fresh, you can use:

New-SPProfileServiceApplication -applicationpool <ApplicationPoolName> -Name <ServiceApplicationName> -Profiledbname <DatabaseName> [-Profiledbserver <ServerName>]

4. Create a new relationship/proxy for the User Profile Service App and ensure it is in the default proxy group.  You can do this in central admin or in powershell.

New-SPProfileServiceApplicationProxy -ServiceApplication <ProfileServiceApplicationID> -Name <ProxyName> -DefaultProxyGroup

5. Ensure the profile sync service is running

Note: The Profile Sync Service app Service Account for the profile sync job must be server admin, this is a FIM requirement.  Michael Noel uses a dedicated server for profile sync if the customer is concerned about the security/permissions.  Note the service

6. Upgrade the mysites before the SSP is mounted

Ultimately I think upgrading the services by doing an in place upgrade on the SSP is a decent way of upgrading the configuration.  I’m becoming a big fan of hybrid upgrade.