A preview build of SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 is now available for download.

Microsoft has released a Customer Technology Preview (CTP) build of the first service pack for SQL Server 2012. The main improvements are better handling of availability groups; smarter XML indexing; support for SharePoint Server 2013 preview; and improvements to the Express version of SQL Server.

When using availability groups you can now migrate from lower versions of Windows Cluster to higher versions. This is mainly useful for keeping to your service level agreement when upgrading Windows Cluster.

XML indexes can now be selective, so users can promote certain paths from their XML documents that will be indexed. There’s also a new type of XML index in addition to Primary XML Index (PXI) to provide better querying performance when indexing large XML data workloads.

The support for SharePoint Server 2013 Preview adds the ability to share and collaborate on using business intelligence data either from SharePoint Server 2013 Preview or SQL Server 2012 SP1.

If you use the Express version of SQL Server, you now have full SQL Server Management Studio capabilities.