Microsoft SQL Server and Change Data Capture Feature

 

In today’s data-driven business environment, the Change Data Capture (CDC) feature gives an edge in operational efficiencies to organizations. CDC stops data breaches by creating a firewall for databases and stores values of all changes made to databases without compromising them in any manner.

In the past, businesses had made a demand for these features and various databases had tried varied solutions but without much success. These included triggers, timestamps, complex queries, and data auditing. It was only after Microsoft launched their SQL Server CDC tool that users got what they had always asked for.    



Microsoft launched SQL Server CDC IN 2005 with “after update”, “after insert”, and “after delete” capabilities. However, DBAs considered it too complex and invasive and hence, it was not well-received. Based on this feedback, Microsoft launched a new version in 2008 that was technologically advanced with several cutting-edge features. These are still to be found in the present version of SQL Server CDC.  

What then are the functions of SQL Server CDC.

Change Data Capture monitors all changes made to data made in tables and stores them so that action as required can be taken on them later. The changes are stored in relational tables and can be retrieved whenever necessary with T-SQL. 

A mirror image of the tracked table is created whenever the CDC feature is applied to a database table. This new table has additional columns of metadata that checks for changes made to a database row. These extra columns are the only points of differences between the original and the replicated table. All other attributes of the two are similar in all respects.  

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