Debezium: Change Data Capture for Kafka

Debezium turns your database into an event stream. Every change — insert, update, delete — becomes a Kafka event. Here’s how to get started.

What is Change Data Capture?

CDC captures row-level changes in databases. Instead of polling for changes, Debezium reads the database’s transaction log and streams changes in real-time.

Architecture

Database → Debezium Connector → Kafka → Consumers
              (reads tx log)            (downstream systems)

Supported Databases

• PostgreSQL
• MySQL / MariaDB
• SQL Server
• MongoDB
• Oracle (incubating)

Docker Compose Setup

services:
  connect:
    image: debezium/connect:1.0
    ports:
      - "8083:8083"
    environment:
      BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS: kafka:9092
      GROUP_ID: 1
      CONFIG_STORAGE_TOPIC: connect_configs
      OFFSET_STORAGE_TOPIC: connect_offsets

Use Cases

• Keep search indexes in sync
• Replicate to data warehouse
• Trigger downstream pipelines
• Audit logging
• Cache invalidation

References

• Debezium Documentation