Implementing real-time change data capture with Debezium for Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL

This article provides a comprehensive guide to implementing real-time change data capture (CDC) using Debezium with Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL and Amazon MSK.

• Debezium monitors PostgreSQL WAL to stream database changes to Kafka topics in real time
• Solution uses Aurora PostgreSQL logical replication, MSK Connect, and Debezium PostgreSQL connector
• Enable logical replication via DB cluster parameter group setting rds.logical_replication to 1
• Create MSK serverless cluster, EC2 instance, and custom Debezium plugin in S3
• Configure IAM role with permissions for MSK, Secrets Manager, S3, and CloudWatch Logs
• Create publication on source table and MSK connector with Debezium configuration
• Test CDC with INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE operations; verify real-time events in Kafka consumer
• Monitor using CloudWatch metrics for MSK, Aurora, and connector health
• Common issues: replication slot lag, connector failures, schema evolution, network connectivity
• Cleanup requires deleting connector, plugin, MSK cluster, database, EC2, IAM resources, secrets, logs, and S3

This solution enables event-driven architectures with low-latency database change streaming for analytics, ML, and LLM applications.