What Is Change Data Capture (CDC)?

Do you know what the difference between data and information is? It's all in the way you glance at it. Data is a fact. It's something that happened or exists. Information is what you do with that data—it's the result of analysis and can help us make decisions. We may have data about how many people are using our product, but only by analyzing it can we find out why they're using it or whether they're having trouble with it. Change Data Capture (CDC) refers to software that records database activity for tracking purposes from enterprise database transaction logs. CDC mainly deals with monitoring changes occurring within the data itself and aims to ensure data synchronicity. If you've ever had to manually track data changes and manage your company's database, you know the pain of keeping up with what changes have been made, when they happened and who made them. But thankfully, Microsoft offers software with change data capture features. An example would be SQL Server 2008, which allows users to record, track and update data changes in real-time. Other software allows the capture of data changes, like InfoSphere Change Data Capture. Change data capture (CDC) is a method used by an application or database management system (DBMS) to track changes made to a database and to apply those changes automatically wherever necessary. It differs from replication in that it does not distribute copies of information across multiple sites; instead, it sends only the differences between old and new values to other databases or applications that need them. Because CDC works at the row level rather than at the table level as replication does, it requires less bandwidth than replication in some cases but has more significant latency due to its sequential nature. In a world where data is king, it's essential to know where your data is and if you don't, you could get yourself into trouble. CDC improves operational efficiency and saves enterprises time by eliminating unneeded data transfers in many databases. It identifies the extraction process from production databases to data warehouses. In short, CDC ensures your data is where it needs to be—and nowhere else.