Initialize CDC applications from an existing database

You can enable CDC on existing databases, but that will only affect future transactions and existing data will not be surfaced by CDC procedures. If your use case requires a snapshot of existing data for CDC purposes, you have to do so manually and without the aid of CDC query procedures.

In particular, the recommended steps are:

  • Enable CDC on the database

  • Set database to read-only

  • Capture the current change identifier

  • Perform a snapshot using an application of your own that reads all nodes and relationships of interest and processes those according to your CDC requirements

  • Set database to read-write

  • Run your CDC application starting with the captured change identifier