Service packs are very critical and important. It is very important from product upgrade & bug fixing point of view.
Microsoft has recently released SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4. CTP stands for Community Technology Preview and it is not the final version yet. The SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP release is available for testing purposes and use on non-production environments.
Please wait for SP1 final release to deploy on your production environment.
The following highlights a few key enhancements in CTP4:
- Cross-Cluster Migration of AlwaysOn Availability Groups for OS Upgrade
- Selective XML Index
- DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS works with SELECT permission
- New function returns statistics properties
- SSMS Complete in Express
- Slipstream Full Installation
- New Management Object Support Added for Resource Governor DDL
SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=257796
SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 Express: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=257783
SQL Server 2012 SP1 CTP4 Feature Pack: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=263965
Detailed list of improvements and fixes : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb500435
