Adding a new partition is fairly simple, particularly if you don't care about writing RULEs to direct data into it and can rely on a bulk loader to figure that part out.
Removing a partition, on the other hand, is currently impossible to do without blocking selects against the table as a whole. The reason for this is that when planning to see if a partition needs to be read an AccessShareLock is taken and held for the entire transaction. If that lock was not there a partition (inherited table) could be dropped without any interruptions to normal query processing. Is it possible to release the AccessShareLock lock on "measurement_yy04mm03" after planning has determined that the structure will not be used for this query in a "READ COMMITTED" transaction? Serializable obviously would have problems with the partitions constraint definition changing. Yes. During the DROP new queries would not be planned but the DROP itself would not need to wait for all executing transactions to finish before proceeding. t=# CREATE TABLE measurement ( t(# city_id int not null, t(# logdate date not null, t(# peaktemp int, t(# unitsales int t(# ); CREATE TABLE t=# CREATE TABLE measurement_yy04mm02 ( t(# CHECK ( logdate >= DATE '2004-02-01' AND logdate < DATE '2004-03-01' ) t(# ) INHERITS (measurement); CREATE TABLE t=# CREATE TABLE measurement_yy04mm03 ( t(# CHECK ( logdate >= DATE '2004-03-01' AND logdate < DATE '2004-04-01' ) t(# ) INHERITS (measurement); CREATE TABLE t=# EXPLAIN SELECT count(*) FROM measurement WHERE logdate = '2004-02-06'; QUERY PLAN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aggregate (cost=60.79..60.80 rows=1 width=0) -> Append (cost=0.00..60.75 rows=16 width=0) -> Seq Scan on measurement (cost=0.00..30.38 rows=8 width=0) Filter: (logdate = '2004-02-06'::date) -> Seq Scan on measurement_yy04mm02 measurement (cost=0.00..30.38 rows=8 width=0) Filter: (logdate = '2004-02-06'::date) (6 rows) t=# CREATE INDEX measurement_yy04mm02_logdate ON measurement_yy04mm02 (logdate); CREATE INDEX t=# CREATE INDEX measurement_yy04mm03_logdate ON measurement_yy04mm03 (logdate); CREATE INDEX t=# EXPLAIN SELECT count(*) FROM measurement WHERE logdate = '2004-02-06'; QUERY PLAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aggregate (cost=41.44..41.45 rows=1 width=0) -> Append (cost=0.00..41.40 rows=16 width=0) -> Seq Scan on measurement (cost=0.00..30.38 rows=8 width=0) Filter: (logdate = '2004-02-06'::date) -> Bitmap Heap Scan on measurement_yy04mm02 measurement (cost=1.03..11.03 rows=8 width=0) Recheck Cond: (logdate = '2004-02-06'::date) -> Bitmap Index Scan on measurement_yy04mm02_logdate (cost=0.00..1.03 rows=8 width=0) Index Cond: (logdate = '2004-02-06'::date) (8 rows) t=# begin; BEGIN t=# SELECT count(*) FROM measurement WHERE logdate = '2004-02-06'; count ------- 0 (1 row) t=# select relname, mode from pg_locks join pg_class on (pg_class.oid = relation); relname | mode ----------------------+----------------- measurement_yy04mm03 | AccessShareLock measurement | AccessShareLock pg_locks | AccessShareLock measurement_yy04mm02 | AccessShareLock pg_class | AccessShareLock (5 rows) -- ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq