According to this page, “Sun is streamlining online support, and access to information on SunSolve and in the Sun System Handbook will change.”
SunSolve and the Handbook provide information to two different audiences:
(1) the general Sun Community
(2) Sun Service Plan or Contract customers
The type of information available to these two audiences will be changing starting on April 5, 2005.
The information available to each audience will be based on the following guidelines:
Available to the general Sun Community:
* On SunSolve: Security Information
* Resolved Sun Alerts
* Patch Descriptions (a.k.a. Patch ReadMe documents)
* Archived SunSolve content
* Limited Access to the SunSolve Knowledgebase
* Sun Support Forums
* Big Admin
* In the Sun System Handbook: Hardware Specifications
* Related Documentation
* Limited Full Component List (FCL) Information
Available to Service Plan or Contract customers:
* On SunSolve: Everything available to the general Sun Community listed above
* Full Access to the SunSolve Knowledgebase
* In the Sun System Handbook: Full access to Sun System Handbook information including:
* A complete Full Component List (FCL)
* System Views
* Component / Device Information
* Reference Lists
* Index Pages
Personally, I think restricting access to the System Handbook is a bad idea – apparently someone at Sun wants to go back to the “good old days” of charging almost a thousand dollars for a set of Field Engineer Handbooks – and you can’t even look at PICTURES of Sun systems without having a support contract.
