diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ddl.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ddl.sgml
index cce1618fc1..15505f337c 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ddl.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ddl.sgml
@@ -3450,8 +3450,9 @@ VALUES ('Albany', NULL, NULL, 'NY');
- These deficiencies will probably be fixed in some future release,
- but in the meantime considerable care is needed in deciding whether
+ Some functionality not implemented for inheritance hierarchies is
+ implemented for declarative partitioning.
+ Considerable care is needed in deciding whether partitioning with legacy
inheritance is useful for your application.
@@ -4674,6 +4675,87 @@ EXPLAIN SELECT count(*) FROM measurement WHERE logdate >= DATE '2008-01-01';
+
+
+ Declarative Partitioning Best Practices
+
+
+ The choice of how to partition a table should be made carefully as the
+ performance of query planning and execution can be negatively affected by
+ poor design.
+
+
+
+ One of the most critical design decisions will be the column or columns
+ by which you partition your data. Often the best choice will be to
+ partition by the column or set of columns which most commonly appear in
+ WHERE clauses of queries being executed on the
+ partitioned table. WHERE clause items that match and
+ are compatible with the partition key can be used to prune unneeded
+ partitions. However, you may be forced into making other decisions by
+ requirements for the PRIMARY KEY or a
+ UNIQUE constraint. Removal of unwanted data is also a
+ factor to consider when planning your partitioning strategy. An entire
+ partition can be detached fairly quickly, so it may be beneficial to
+ design the partition strategy in such a way that all data to be removed
+ at once is located in a single partition.
+
+
+
+ Choosing the target number of partitions that the table should be divided
+ into is also a critical decision to make. Not having enough partitions
+ may mean that indexes remain too large and that data locality remains poor
+ which could result in low cache hit ratios. However, dividing the table
+ into too many partitions can also cause issues. Too many partitions can
+ mean longer query planning times and higher memory consumption during both
+ query planning and execution. When choosing how to partition your table,
+ it's also important to consider what changes may occur in the future. For
+ example, if you choose to have one partition per customer and you
+ currently have a small number of large customers, consider the
+ implications if in several years you instead find yourself with a large
+ number of small customers. In this case, it may be better to choose to
+ partition by HASH and choose a reasonable number of
+ partitions rather than trying to partition by LIST and
+ hoping that the number of customers does not increase beyond what it is
+ practical to partition the data by.
+
+
+
+ Sub-partitioning can be useful to further divide partitions that are
+ expected to become larger than other partitions, although excessive
+ sub-partitioning can easily lead to large numbers of partitions and can
+ cause the same problems mentioned in the preceding paragraph.
+
+
+
+ It is also important to consider the overhead of partitioning during
+ query planning and execution. The query planner is generally able to
+ handle partition hierarchies up a few thousand partitions fairly well,
+ provided that typical queries allow the query planner to prune all but a
+ small number of partitions. Planning times become longer and memory
+ consumption becomes higher when more partitions remain after the planner
+ performs partition pruning. This is particularly true for the
+ UPDATE and DELETE commands. Another
+ reason to be concerned about having a large number of partitions is that
+ the server's memory consumption may grow significantly over a period of
+ time, especially if many sessions touch large numbers of partitions.
+ That's because each partition requires its metadata to be loaded into the
+ local memory of each session that touches it.
+
+
+
+ With data warehouse type workloads, it can make sense to use a larger
+ number of partitions than with an OLTP type workload.
+ Generally, in data warehouses, query planning time is less of a concern as
+ the majority of processing time is spent during query execution. With
+ either of these two types of workload, it is important to make the right
+ decisions early, as re-partitioning large quantities of data can be
+ painfully slow. Simulations of the intended workload are often beneficial
+ for optimizing the partitioning strategy. Never assume that more
+ partitions are better than fewer partitions and vice-versa.
+
+
+