SQL Debezium Kafka Snowflake

(Completely self-contained. No Azure. No Elasticsearch.) 1️⃣ BEGINNER THEORY SECTION (Only What We Use) 🟦 What is CDC (Change Data Capture)? CDC = CCTV camera for your database Imagine your SQL database is a bank vault. CDC acts like: 🎥 A CCTV camera recording every insert, update, delete. Instead of scanning the whole database again and again, it only captures what changed. Why useful? Real-time data pipelines No heavy full table scans Efficient replication 🟦 What is Debezium? Debezium = Smart CDC Reader If CDC is CCTV footage, Debezium is the security officer watching that footage and sending alerts. It: Reads database transaction logs Converts changes into events Sends events to Kafka 🟦 What is Apache Kafka? Kafka = Post Office Sorting Center 📬 Imagine thousands of letters arriving per second. Kafka: Receives messages (events) Stores them in order Lets multiple systems read them independently Kafka does NOT modify data. It stores streams. 🟦 What is a Kafka Topic? Topic = Mailbox Exa