A brief recap – lock escalation in SQL Server 2005 and before only allowed table-level lock escalation. If you have a partitioned table with queries going against different partitions, then table-level escalation is a pain because the whole table is suddenly locked and concurrent queries against distinct partitions can't run. SQL Server 2008 gives the ability to escalate to a parttition lock, which won't affect the queries on the other partitions.
The lock escalation policy can only be set with ALTER TABLE after a table has been created, and the policy can only be set at the table level. The syntax is

ALTER TABLE TableName SET (LOCK_ESCALATION = TABLE | AUTO | DISABLE);
The options mean:
  • TABLE – escalation will always be to the table level. This is the default.
  • AUTO – escalation will be to the partition level if the table is partitioned; otherwise it will be to the table level
  • DISABLE – escalation will be disabled. This does not guarantee that it will NEVER occur – there are some cases where it is necessary (Books Online gives the example of scanning a heap in the SERIALIZABLE isolation level)
The only way I could find to check what the escalation policy for a table is set to is to use the sys.tables catalog view:

SELECT lock_escalation_desc FROM sys.mytables WHERE name = 'TableName';

Let's try it out. Here's a script that creates a database with an example table with 3 partitions. The partition ranges are negative infinity to 7999, 8000 to 15999, 16000 to positive infinity.

CREATE DATABASE LockEscalationTest;
GO

USE LockEscalationTest;
GO

– Create three partitions: -7999, 8000-15999, 16000+
CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION MyPartitionFunction (INT) AS RANGE RIGHT FOR VALUES (8000, 16000);GO

CREATE PARTITION SCHEME MyPartitionScheme AS PARTITION MyPartitionFunction
ALL TO ([PRIMARY]);GO

– Create a partitioned table
CREATE TABLE MyPartitionedTable (c1 INT);GO

CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX MPT_Clust ON MyPartitionedTable (c1)
ON MyPartitionScheme (c1);GO

– Fill the table
SET NOCOUNT ON;GO

DECLARE @a INT = 1;
WHILE (@a < 17000)BEGININSERT INTO MyPartitionedTable VALUES (@a);SELECT @a = @a + 1;END;GO
Now I'm going to explicitly set the escalation to TABLE and start a transaction that should cause lock escalation.
ALTER TABLE MyPartitionedTable SET (LOCK_ESCALATION = TABLE);

GO

BEGIN TRAN

UPDATE MyPartitionedTable SET c1 = c1 WHERE c1 < 7500;
GO
We should be able to see the locks being held:
SELECT [resource_type], [resource_associated_entity_id], [request_mode],

[request_type], [request_status] FROM sys.dm_tran_locks WHERE [resource_type] <> 'DATABASE';
GO
resource_type   resource_associated_entity_id request_mode   request_type   request_status

————— —————————– ————– ————– —————-
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
OBJECT          2105058535                    X              LOCK           GRANT
Just as we expected – an X table lock. Trying any query against the table fails now. Now I'll rollback that transaction, set the escalation to partition-level and try again.

ROLLBACK TRAN;

GO

ALTER TABLE MyPartitionedTable SET (LOCK_ESCALATION = AUTO);

GO

BEGIN TRAN

UPDATE MyPartitionedTable SET c1 = c1 WHERE c1 < 7500;
GO
SELECT [partition_id], [object_id], [index_id], [partition_number]

FROM sys.partitions WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID ('MyPartitionedTable');
GO
SELECT [resource_type], [resource_associated_entity_id], [request_mode],

[request_type], [request_status] FROM sys.dm_tran_locks WHERE [resource_type] <> 'DATABASE';
GO
partition_id         object_id   index_id    partition_number

——————– ———– ———– —————-
72057594039042048    2105058535  1           1
72057594039107584    2105058535  1           2
72057594039173120    2105058535  1           3
resource_type   resource_associated_entity_id request_mode   request_type   request_status

————— —————————– ————– ————– —————-
HOBT            72057594039042048             X              LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
OBJECT          2105058535                    IX             LOCK           GRANT
Excellent – the object lock is now IX rather than X, and the X lock is at the partition (HOBT) level for partition 1 (see the bold highlighting to match the partition ID with the lock resource). (For an explanation of HOBTs, see my post Inside The Storage Engine: IAM pages, IAM chains, and allocation units.) So now we should be able to do something with another partition – let's see if we can cause another partition level X lock in another connection:
USE LockEscalationTest;

GO

BEGIN TRAN

UPDATE MyPartitionedTable set c1 = c1 WHERE c1 > 8100 AND c1 < 15900;
GO
SELECT [partition_id], [object_id], [index_id], [partition_number]

FROM sys.partitions WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID ('MyPartitionedTable');
GO
SELECT [resource_type], [resource_associated_entity_id], [request_mode],

[request_type], [request_status] FROM sys.dm_tran_locks WHERE [resource_type] <> 'DATABASE';
GO
partition_id         object_id   index_id    partition_number

——————– ———– ———– —————-
72057594039042048    2105058535  1           1
72057594039107584    2105058535  1           2
72057594039173120    2105058535  1           3

resource_type   resource_associated_entity_id request_mode   request_type   request_status

————— —————————– ————– ————– —————-
HOBT            72057594039107584             X              LOCK           GRANT
HOBT            72057594039042048             X              LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
METADATA        0                             Sch-S          LOCK           GRANT
OBJECT          2105058535                    IX             LOCK           GRANT
OBJECT          2105058535                    IX             LOCK           GRANT
Now we have two partition X locks, for partitions 1 and 2 (as expected – use the color coding above to match up the IDs), plus two table-level IX locks (one for each  connection, as expected). Very cool!
Now I'm going to force a deadlock – by having each connection try to read a row from the other locked partition:
Connection 1:
SELECT * FROM MyPartitionedTable WHERE c1 = 8500;

GO

Connection 2:
SELECT * FROM MyPartitionedTable WHERE c1 = 100;

GO
Connection 2 succeeds but on connection 1 we get (as expected)

(local)\SQLDEV01(SQLHAVPC\Administrator): Msg 1205, Level 13, State 18, Line 1

Transaction (Process ID 51) was deadlocked on lock resources with another process and has been chosen as the deadlock victim. Rerun the transaction.
This illustrates a potential problem with this new mechanism – applications that used to rely on the blocking nature of X table locks may now exhibit deadlocks if partition-level escalation is turned on in production without any testing, this mode was specifically chosen NOT to be the default setting for new tables because some trial workloads exhibited deadlocks during testing. Don't just turn it on in production without testing – as with any other option or feature.