Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Getting Started:
New and Revised Features

Online schema changes

In OpenEdge Release 10.0B, the SQL statements ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN, CREATE INDEX, CREATE VIEW, CREATE PROCEDURE, and CREATE TRIGGER could not be run against an online database, as they required an exclusive lock.

In Release 10.1A, the above statements now acquire a serialized schema write lock. This allows them to be run against online databases.

Note that:

Columns added to a table online cannot have constraints unless the table is empty.
Active indexes can only be created against an online database if the following conditions are met:
You specify PRO_ACTIVEIDX ‘N’.
You run CREATE INDEX immediately after creating a table.
The index is created on the newly created table.
Both the CREATE TABLE and CREATE INDEX are performed within the same transaction (that is, no commit is performed after CREATE TABLE is run).

For more information about the above statements, see:

Manual:

OpenEdge Data Management: SQL Reference