diff --git a/aodh/coordination.py b/aodh/coordination.py
index 37a847d14..5b65d21e7 100644
--- a/aodh/coordination.py
+++ b/aodh/coordination.py
@@ -29,10 +29,9 @@ LOG = log.getLogger(__name__)
 OPTS = [
     cfg.StrOpt('backend_url',
                help='The backend URL to use for distributed coordination. If '
-                    'left empty, per-deployment central agent and per-host '
-                    'compute agent won\'t do workload '
+                    'left empty, alarm evaluation won\'t do workload '
                     'partitioning and will only function correctly if a '
-                    'single instance of that service is running.'),
+                    'single instance of the service is running.'),
     cfg.FloatOpt('heartbeat',
                  default=1.0,
                  help='Number of seconds between heartbeats for distributed '
diff --git a/doc/source/admin/telemetry-alarms.rst b/doc/source/admin/telemetry-alarms.rst
index 4c16be77e..16eec62b4 100644
--- a/doc/source/admin/telemetry-alarms.rst
+++ b/doc/source/admin/telemetry-alarms.rst
@@ -108,8 +108,8 @@ intended primarily for testing purposes.
 Workload partitioning
 ---------------------
 
-The alarm evaluation process uses the same mechanism for workload
-partitioning as the central and compute agents. The
+The alarm evaluation process can be scaled horizontally but requires
+workload partitioning to function correctly. The
 `Tooz <https://pypi.python.org/pypi/tooz>`_ library provides the
 coordination within the groups of service instances. For further
 information about this approach, see the `high availability guide