Change Tracking is suitable for detecting whether data changes, does not record specific changes, and is small overhead, and is suitable for scenarios where large-scale tables are frequently updated; Change Data Capture records complete changes details, including old and new values, and is suitable for auditing, ETL incremental loading and other scenarios, but has a large performance overhead. Choose the two according to your needs: if you only need to synchronize the status, use Change Tracking; if you need to change the content, use Change Data Capture; it can also be used in combination.
There are two functions in SQL Server, Change Tracking and Change Data Capture. They sound a bit similar, but the usage and applicable scenarios are quite different. Simply put, Change Tracking is lighter and suitable for only caring about whether there is any change; while Change Data Capture is more detailed and can record how it changes.

Change Tracking: Suitable for lightweight change detection
If you just want to know if a piece of data has been modified and don't care about how it changes, then Change Tracking is suitable.
- It does not record old and new values, it only tells you which rows have changed.
- The overhead is small and has little impact on performance. It is suitable for large-scale tables or frequent updates.
- It is often used to synchronize data state between systems, such as whether the client cache needs to be refreshed.
For example: You have an order table that is updated many times a day, but you only need to know which orders have changed, and you don’t need to know which field has been changed. At this time, it’s just right to use Change Tracking.

The way to enable it is also relatively simple:
- Enable Change Tracking for the database
- Then enable the specific table and set retention time and other parameters
The disadvantage is that the information is limited, the historical data cannot be restored, and the audit operation cannot be performed.

Change Data Capture: Record complete changes
If you need to know when a certain line has been changed, including old and new values, you need to use Change Data Capture (CDC) .
- The CDC records the specific content of all insert, update and delete operations.
- Data is automatically crawled through the SQL Server Agent Job and saved to a special change table.
- Supports advanced uses such as data auditing and incremental loading in the ETL process.
For example, if you are working in a data warehouse and want to only process newly added or modified data at a time, CDC is particularly useful. It can tell you that a field has changed from "completed" to "cancel", rather than just telling you that the line has changed.
But CDC costs more:
- Need to enable SQL Server Agent
- Take up more disk space
- Have a certain impact on performance, especially for write-intensive applications
Therefore, not every table is suitable for opening CDC, and it is recommended to enable only critical business tables.
How to choose? Depend on your needs
Which one to use depends mainly on the problem you want to solve:
- If you're just doing sync or refreshing the cache, Change Tracking is enough.
- If you need to know what has been changed, such as reporting analysis, data migration, and audit trail, then choose Change Data Capture .
In addition, it can also be used in combination. For example, use Change Tracking for most tables, and only enable CDC for a few key tables.
In general, these two functions have their own positioning. Change Tracking is simple and efficient, and Change Data Capture is powerful but more complex. Only by selecting the appropriate mechanism based on the actual scenario can we not only meet business needs without dragging down system performance.
Basically that's it.
The above is the detailed content of SQL Server Change Tracking vs. Change Data Capture. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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