Partner queue solution doc updates (#3010)

* Update billing-overview.md, multi-cpu-architectures.md, overview.md with PQS information and referneces

* fixing 'concurrency limit' information in Usage based plans in billing-overview.md

Co-authored-by: nrios14 <[email protected]>

Author: michal-at-travisci

user/billing-overview.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ permalink: /user/billing-overview/
 
 ---
 
-> A new billing engine has been introduced on November 1st, 2020 to [https://travis-ci.com](https://travis-ci.com) 
+> A new billing engine was introduced on November 1st, 2020 to [https://travis-ci.com](https://travis-ci.com) 
 
 ## Travis CI Plan types
 
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ The variety of plans provides you with the flexibility to choose the plan that s
 
 | Billing Period | Concurrency based | Usage based |
 |:-------        |:-----------------:|:-----------:|
-|Month           | Concurrent jobs limit<br />Unlimited build minutes on Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD<br />Paid macOS builds (credits)<br /><br />Available via [site](https://travis-ci.com/account/plan) | Very high or no concurrency limit<br />Paid macOS, Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD build minutes (credits)<br />Paid user licenses (only per users trigerring the builds)<br /><br />Contact Travis CI to obtain|
+|Month           | Concurrent jobs limit<br />Unlimited build minutes on Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD<br />Paid macOS builds (credits)<br /><br />Available via [site](https://travis-ci.com/account/plan) | Very high concurrency limit<br />Paid macOS, Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD build minutes (credits)<br />Paid user licenses (only per users trigerring the builds)<br /><br />Contact Travis CI to obtain|
 
 For the majority of users, a single concurrency based plan should be sufficient. However, if you build a lot of minutes per month and concurrency becomes a bottleneck, please contact Travis CI asking for a Usage based plan.
 
@@ -79,10 +79,13 @@ Thus whenever you select or are assigned a Usage based plan:
 * Plan has the default allotment of credits associated (default Credits addon)
 * Only advance charge is related to the allotment of credits available initially in the Plan, e.g. Plan coming with 25,000 credits will result in immediate charge according to the enlisted price
 
-Credits are deducted from your balance each time a build job ends either with some result or is canceled manually by you. Each started build job minute has a credit cost associated with the environment as per the table below.
+You can also purchase credits while on the Concurrency based Plan. These are used only in scenarios, which require credits in order to start a build job (e.g. building on macOS or using a non-standard VM instance size).
+
+Credits are deducted from your balance each time a build job starts a VM instance or an LXD container and is running. Each started build job minute has a credit cost associated with the environment used as shown in the table below. If your account runs out of credits, there's a slight margin of negative credits you are allowed to exceed in order to finish the job, but if that margin is passed - jobs will be cancelled due to insufficient credits balance.
 
 | OS                   | # Credits per<br />started build minute |
 |:--------------------:|:-----------:|
+| Partner Queue        | 0           |
 | Linux                | 10          |
 | Experimental FreeBSD | 10          |
 | Windows              | 20          |
@@ -96,12 +99,38 @@ Additional credits can be purchased at any time. Credits are replenished by purc
 
 Your credits remain available until you use them or disband them. At the moment we do not discard unused paid credits after 12 months, yet this may be subject to change on short notice.
 
-You may disband your credits. It will happen when
+You may disband your credits. This happens when
 
 * you switch from the Usage based plan to a Free Plan (which cancels the paid Plan)
 
 and is meant to prevent abusive usage of the system.
 
+#### Partner Queue Solution
+
+Partner Queue Solution is a solution for infrastructure sponsored by our Partners with OSS in mind which can be used completely for free. Currently, it includes:
+
+- IBM CPU builds in IBM Cloud (sponsored by IBM)
+- ARM64 CPU builds in Equinix Metal (former Packet) infrastructure (sponsored by ARM)
+
+This is available only to Open Source Software repositories.
+
+In order to run a job using Partner Queue Solution, use the following `.travis.yml` tags in your public repository:
+
+```yaml
+os: linux
+arch:
+  - arm64
+  - ppc64le
+  - s390x
+```
+
+Please see our [Build Environment overview](/user/reference/overview/) and [Building for Multiple CPU architectures](/user/multi-cpu-architectures/) pages for more details.
+
+In order to start a build in the Usage based Plan, a positive credits balance is required in the account (at least 1 credit). The build job under Partner Queue Solution costs 0 credits per started minute. At the moment of introducing Partner Queue Solution active accounts on the Usage based Plans, including the Free Plan, with a balance of zero or fewer credits, balance is updated to hold 1 credit. Thus everybody can use Partner Queues without requesting Travis CI support to grant additional credits. If you run into a negative account balance after that, you still need to file an additional request.
+
+In the case of Concurrency based Plans, you can use the above infrastructure for OSS builds without any credits in your account.
+
+Partner Queues are available only for standard instance size.
 
 #### Negative Credits
 
@@ -142,7 +171,7 @@ With every build started, Travis CI keeps track of how many unique users trigger
 | :---                            | ---        |
 | **Payment**                     | Credits are paid in advance:<BR />1. Upon purchasing a Plan, an immediate charge is applied depending on credits allotment coming with a Plan.<BR />2. The additional credit addons can be purchased at any time and credits used only when you need them. The charge is applied immediately upon transaction.<BR /><BR />The user license cost is charged automatically in arrears, at the end of each billing period. The number of unique users triggering a build is charged according to the license rates.<br /><br />The Free Plan assigned upon sign-up grants you unlimited users for free. |
 | **Private/Public repositories** | With Credits you can build over both private and public repositories. <BR/> With OSS Credits you can build only over public repositories. |
-| **Build job limits**            | None or very high. <BR/><BR/>The Free Plan assigned automatically upon sign-up has a limit of 20 concurrent jobs. |
+| **Build job limits**            | Very high. <BR/><BR/>The Free Plan assigned automatically upon sign-up has a limit of 20 concurrent jobs. The paid usage based plans start from 40 concurrent jobs limit. |
 
 
 ### Usage based Plan - How to obtain?

user/multi-cpu-architectures.md

@@ -183,3 +183,7 @@ You can also have a look at [Using Docker in Builds](/user/docker/).
 ## LXD related limitations
 
 For more details see [Build Environment Overview](/user/reference/overview/#linux-security-and-lxd-container).
+
+## Partner Queue Solution
+
+With the introduction of a new billing system in Travis CI, the IBM and part of the ARM64 infrastructures are kept available free of charge for OSS as a part of the Partner Queue Solution. For more details see [Billing Overview - Usage based Plans - Credits](/user/billing-overview/#usage---credits).

user/reference/overview.md

@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ if it contains:
 * `gce` → the build ran in a virtual machine on Google Compute Engine.
 * `wjb` → the build ran on macOS.
 * `1803-containers` → the build ran on Windows.
-* `lxd-arm64` → the build ran within an LXD container on Arm64-based infrastructure (currently delivered by Packet)
+* `lxd-arm64` → the build ran within an LXD container on Arm64-based infrastructure (currently delivered by Equinix Metal, formerly known as Packet)
 * `lxd-ppc64le` → the build ran within an LXD container on Power-based infrastructure (currently delivered by IBM)
 * `lxd-s390x` → the build ran within an LXD container on Z-based infrastructure (currently delivered by IBM)
 
@@ -140,6 +140,10 @@ If *instance*, right under the *hostname* contains `ec2` → the build ran withi
 
 > To avoid mistreated keys you can validate your `.travis.yml` file using the [Build Config Validation](/user/build-config-validation).
 
+### Partner Queue Solution
+
+With the introduction of a new billing system in Travis CI, the IBM and part of the ARM64 infrastructures are kept available free of charge for OSS as a part of the Partner Queue Solution. For more details see [Billing Overview - Usage based Plans - Credits](/user/billing-overview/#usage---credits).
+
 ### Linux: .travis.yml examples
 
 #### The AMD64 builds