How to reindex tables AX 2012

There can be performance increases when rebuilding indexes on tables in AX. There are ways in both SQL and AX to do this. As far as I can tell, there is no difference between doing this in SQL vs AX except that SQL can provide more visibility into the process. I'm fine just running it in AX under System Administration -> Periodic -> Database -> 'SQL administration', then clicking 'Index actions' and selecting 'Reindex' (see Figure 1 below)

 

Figure 1 - Where to reindex the tables in AX 2012

If looking to optimize the system for instance, I would do the following:

1. rebuild the indexes
2. do performance benchmarking on key processes
3. analyze what indexes could be optimized
4. make those optimization changes to tables in AX AOT
5. rebuild the indexes
6. do performance benchmarking on key processes
7. repeat steps 3-6 as necessary