CDC Streams¶

Streams are partitions in CDC log tables. They are identified by their keys: stream identifiers. When you perform a base table write, ScyllaDB chooses a stream ID for the corresponding CDC log entries based on two things:

• the currently operating CDC generation (CDC Stream Generations),

• the base write’s partition key.

Example:

CREATE TABLE ks.t (pk int, ck int, v int, PRIMARY KEY (pk, ck)) WITH cdc = {'enabled': true};
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (0,0,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (0,1,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (0,2,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (2,0,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (2,1,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (2,2,0);
SELECT "cdc$stream_id", pk, ck FROM ks.t_scylla_cdc_log;

returns:

 cdc$stream_id                      | pk | ck
------------------------------------+----+----
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 |  2 |  0
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 |  2 |  1
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 |  2 |  2
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c |  0 |  0
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c |  0 |  1
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c |  0 |  2

(6 rows)

Observe that in the example above, all base writes made to partition 0 were sent to the same stream. The same is true for all base writes made to partition 1.

Underneath, ScyllaDB uses the token of the base write’s partition key to decide the stream ID. It stores a mapping from the token ring (the set of all tokens, which are 64-bit integers) to the set of stream IDs associated with the currently operating CDC generation. Thus, choosing a stream proceeds in two steps:

base partition key |--- partitioner ---> token |--- stream ID mapping ---> stream ID

Therefore, at any given moment, the stream ID chosen for a single base partition key will be the same, but two different partition keys might get mapped to two different streams IDs. But the set of used stream IDs is much smaller than the set of all tokens, so we will often see two base partitions appearing in a single stream:

CREATE TABLE ks.t (pk int, ck int, v int, PRIMARY KEY (pk, ck)) WITH cdc = {'enabled': true};
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (2,0,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (5,0,0);
SELECT "cdc$stream_id", pk, ck FROM ks.t_scylla_cdc_log;

returns:

 cdc$stream_id                      | pk | ck
------------------------------------+----+----
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 |  2 |  0
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 |  5 |  0

(2 rows)

The set of used stream IDs is independent from the table. It’s a global property of the ScyllaDB cluster:

CREATE TABLE ks.t1 (pk int, ck int, v int, primary key (pk, ck)) WITH cdc = {'enabled':'true'};
CREATE TABLE ks.t2 (pk int, ck int, v int, primary key (pk, ck)) WITH cdc = {'enabled':'true'};
INSERT INTO ks.t1 (pk,ck,v) values (0,0,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t2 (pk,ck,v) values (0,0,0);
SELECT "cdc$stream_id", pk, ck FROM ks.t1_scylla_cdc_log;

returns:

 cdc$stream_id                      | pk | ck
------------------------------------+----+----
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c |  0 |  0

(1 rows)

SELECT "cdc$stream_id", pk, ck FROM ks.t2_scylla_cdc_log;

returns:

 cdc$stream_id                      | pk | ck
------------------------------------+----+----
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c |  0 |  0

(1 rows)

As the example above illustrates, even writes made to two different tables will use the same stream ID for their corresponding CDC log entries if their partition keys are the same, assuming that the operating CDC generation doesn’t change in between those writes.

More generally, two base writes will use the same stream IDs if the tokens of their partition keys get mapped to the same stream ID by the CDC generation.

CREATE TABLE ks.t (pk int, ck int, v int, PRIMARY KEY (pk, ck)) WITH cdc = {'enabled':'true'};
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (0,0,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (2,0,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (0,1,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (2,1,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (0,2,0);
INSERT INTO ks.t (pk,ck,v) values (2,2,0);
SELECT "cdc$stream_id", totimestamp("cdc$time"), pk, ck FROM ks.t_scylla_cdc_log;

 cdc$stream_id                      | system.totimestamp(cdc$time)    | pk | ck
------------------------------------+---------------------------------+----+----
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 | 2020-03-25 13:12:59.195000+0000 |  2 |  0
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 | 2020-03-25 13:12:59.196000+0000 |  2 |  1
 0x365fd1a9ae34373954529ac8169dfb93 | 2020-03-25 13:12:59.197000+0000 |  2 |  2
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c | 2020-03-25 13:12:59.194000+0000 |  0 |  0
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c | 2020-03-25 13:12:59.195000+0000 |  0 |  1
 0x166eddaa68db9a95af83968998626f7c | 2020-03-25 13:12:59.197000+0000 |  0 |  2

(6 rows)