Microsoft recently released the Technical Preview 2 of System Center Data Protection Manager 2016: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/mt125351

Installation

Going through the installation, I noticed that it is simplified a little.

Notice that on the Product Registration screen, there is no longer an option for entering a product key.

SCDPM2016TP2 - Product Registration
SCDPM 2016 TP2 – Product Registration
Install DPM 07
SCDPM 2012 R2 – Product Registration

There is also no Security Settings screen anymore.

Also different is the fact that after DPM 2012 R2 is installed, it will automatically initiate an update check via Windows Update. This does not occur (currently) with DPM 2016 TP2.

Install DPM 15
SCDPM 2012 R2 – Post Install Update Check

After the installation, I encountered the following error message. Obviously I was using the default Administrator account during the installation.

However,

SCDPM2016TP2 - Post Install
SCDPM 2016 TP2 – Post Install Error

 

New/Additional Features

Let’s  take a look at a few new features thus far.

Unfortunately/fortunately (depending on how you look at it), there really isn’t anything different in the DPM console!

So where are all the changes? Well, based on the referenced TechNet article, mostly “under the hood”. The TechNet article mentions 3 things that have changed:

  • Continuous Protection for Mixed-mode clusters
  • Improved Inquiry Performance
  • Enhanced reporting with Data Protection Manager Central Console

So although there may not be a lot of interesting “shiny and new” things that we can currently see in DPM, it’s nice to know that the Product Group is putting in a lot of effort to improve the under-pinnings of the tool itself.

Well, that’s it for this first quick look at System Center Data Protection Manager 2016 Technical Preview 2. I’m sure there are a bunch of “under the hood” stuff that I haven’t explored yet. But at least this gets your started.