An index update method, including: receiving an index update request, where the index update request is used to instruct to create or delete a target index that is associated with a field in a logic table of a tenant; updating metadata information of the logic table in a database in response to the index update request; notifying a coordination service, where the coordination service is used to notify a second data access node to perform a local synchronization update; and after all second data access nodes finish local synchronization updates, performing a data asynchronization update. After the metadata information is updated in the database, an index is updated in two steps. In a first step, a local synchronization update is performed. In a second step, after all data access nodes finish local synchronization updates, a data asynchronization update is performed.