🚀 Real-Time Data Replication Using MySQL, Debezium, Kafka, and Docker (CDC Guide)

📌 Introduction Modern applications often need data to move between systems in real time — analytics platforms, microservices, search indexes, or backup databases. Traditional approaches like batch jobs or cron-based sync introduce delays, inconsistencies, and operational complexity. This is where Change Data Capture (CDC) becomes powerful. In this article, we’ll build a simple but powerful real-time database replication pipeline using: MySQL Debezium Apache Kafka Kafka Connect (JDBC Sink) Docker Compose By the end, you’ll have a working system that automatically replicates inserts, updates, and deletes from one database to another. 🔥 What is Change Data Capture (CDC)? Change Data Capture is a technique used to capture database changes (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) and stream them to other systems in real time. Instead of polling the database repeatedly, CDC reads the database transaction log (binlog in MySQL). This makes CDC: ✅ Real-time ✅ Efficient ✅ Reliable ✅ Scalable ❓ Why Do We Need CD