How to Use Change Data Capture with Apache Kafka and ScyllaDB

In a hands-on lab, the integration of ScyllaDB's Change Data Capture (CDC) with Apache Kafka is explored, highlighting the use of the ScyllaDB CDC source connector to push real-time row-level changes from ScyllaDB tables to a Kafka server. This connector, a Debezium component compatible with Kafka Connect, reads CDC logs to produce Kafka messages for each database operation like INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE, tracking changes and ensuring fault tolerance through retry mechanisms and offset tracking. The lab involves setting up a three-node ScyllaDB cluster with CDC-enabled tables and configuring a Kafka server using the Confluent platform to visualize and manage these changes as Kafka messages. Despite some limitations, such as the omission of complex data types, this integration facilitates the creation of scalable, real-time data pipelines by converting database changes into Kafka streams that can be consumed by other applications or systems, showcasing the synergy between ScyllaDB and Kafka for modern, event-driven data architectures.