Sun Cluster 3.2 is one of the most feature-rich releases in this product's history. The largest and most ambitious feature in the release was the new object-oriented command set. See A New Command Set for Solaris Cluster 3.2 for more information. This new set of commands required that the Sun Cluster writers modify every procedure in the Sun Cluster documentation suite and create over 30 new man pages. While this was a daunting task (over 2,000 procedures), the Sun Cluster writers decided to take advantage of this opportunity to address many of the comments and requests we have received from customers over the past few years.

First Request: Include More Examples

Many customers have asked us to include more examples in our documentation, especially in our man pages. In Sun Cluster 3.2, the Sun Cluster writers added examples to all of our new procedures and man pages. In addition, we went back and added examples to many of our existing procedures. We also added a new Quick Start Guide, which is a cookbook or example of how to install a common Sun Cluster configuration. Finally, we added examples of how to deploy hardware and data service (agent) configurations.

Examples of our new and improved documentation include:

1. Quick Start Guide

   This guide is an example of a simplified Sun Cluster installation using a configuration used by approximately 80% of our Sun Cluster customers.
   

2. "Sample Hardware Deployments" and "Sample Data Service Deployments" in Sun Cluster 3.2 Documentation Center

   Deployment examples provide samples of hardware and data service configurations.
   

3. How to Install and Configure a Two-Node Cluster

   This "How To" provides simple instructions and examples for installing a two-node cluster.
   

4. Examples in Object Oriented (1CL) man Pages and Quorum Server man Pages

   All man pages for the new object-oriented command line interface and the new quorum server feature contain comprehensive examples.
   

5. Examples in All New Procedures Added for Sun Cluster 3.2 Features

   We added examples to the procedures for all new features in the Sun Cluster 3.2 release. In addition, we added examples to many of the existing procedures, as shown in Example 8.1 Live Upgrade to Sun Cluster 3.2 Software.
   

Someone wise once said, if you can't find the information, it might as well not be there. Many of our customers complained that it was difficult to find information in the Sun Cluster documentation. To help customers both identify and find the information they need, we created a Sun Cluster documentation center. This center provides a list of links to useful information. If you are a first-time user, we added a Getting Started section to help you ramp-up on Sun Cluster. Feel free to add your comments about this new navigation tool.

We also added information about using external browsers to search docs.sun.com. Now you can use your favorite search engine to search the Sun Cluster documentation.

Finally, we added the ability to view man pages from the procedural documentation. This ability was available in our core Sun Cluster documentation, but now we've added this ability to all our Sun Cluster product documentation. If there's a link to a man page in our documentation, just click on the link and the man page is displayed in the browser window. To view all of the man pages, click on the reference collection for the appropriate Sun Cluster product.

Examples of our improved documentation include:

1. Sun Cluster Documentation Center

   This document provides a topic-based list of Sun Cluster information to help you find information in the Sun Cluster doc set.
   

2. Searching Sun Product Documentation in Sun Cluster 3.2 Release Notes

   We added information to the Sun Cluster 3.2 Release Notes explaining how to use external browsers to search docs.sun.com index entries. This information will help you find the product information quickly and easily.
   

3. Reference Collections for All Sun Cluster Products

   The addition of reference collections for all Sun Cluster products enables you to view relevant man page information in a browsable format from links in the user documentation.

   Sun Cluster 3.2 Reference Manual
   Sun Cluster Data Services Reference Manual
   

See my entry here next month for two other categories of customer comments we addressed in our Sun Cluster 3.2 documentation.

Rita McKissick
Sun Cluster Documentation