SQL Server Capture Parameters

The following parameters are valid for the SQL Server Capture process:

Process Parameters

• process – The only appropriate value is capture
• id – The Capture Process id
• dbtype – The appropriate value is mssql
• name – Name of the Capture Process

Database Connectivity

• server – Host name or IP address of the database server
• port – Database port
• dbname – Database name
• user – Database User name
• password – Database User password
• secondary – Specifies the hostname or IP address of the Microsoft SQL Server Always On readable secondary node. When provided, the replication tool offloads Change Data Capture (CDC) queries and log-reading tasks to this secondary replica. This prevents replication traffic from consuming CPU and I/O resources on your primary production database.

Usage Notes:

• Leave this field empty if you want the tool to read directly from the main server endpoint.
• Ensure the target secondary replica is explicitly configured as a "Readable Secondary" within your SQL Server Availability Group properties.
• Do not include the port number here if you are using the dedicated port parameter.

DML/DDL Replication Objects Specification

• ddlinclude – Mask of the DDL objects to be captured
• ddlexclude – Mask of the DDL objects to be skipped by the Capture Process
• dmlinclude – Mask of the DML objects to be captured
• dmlexclude – Mask of the DML objects to be skipped by the Capture Process
• skiploopback – Used to define the behaviour of a Capture Process when extracting data, which was produced by Apply Processes as part of the “loop-back” control function, in that, this Capture Process will extract or ignore the data. The Apply Processes to be skipped are specified by ids separated by comma. In order to specify all Processes the “all” value to be used. In order to avoid skipping any Apply Processes the “none” value to be used. The default value is “all”.
• map – The set of the parameters to determine global objects’ transformation

See Capture Objects Specification for the DML and DML objects specification details and Objects Mapping and Possible Transforms for the objects' transformation details.

Initial Load Objects Specification

• loadinclude – Mask of the objects to be included into the Initial Load
• loadexclude – Mask of the objects to be skipped during Initial Load

See chapter Initial Load for more details.

Performance Tuning Parameters

• readrows – Number of the rows of changes which the Capture Process reads from the CDC change tables in one cycle. A transaction larger than this number is read and written to the trail files in parts. A smaller value reduces the memory usage of the Capture Process, a larger value reduces the number of cycles. The value must have at least 3 digits. The default value is 150000.
• maxtrailbytes – Size, in bytes, after which the Capture Process closes the current trail file and starts the next one. A trail file can be larger than this size by the size of the last written batch. The default value is 52428800 (50 MiB).

Note – A very small value results in a large number of small trail files.

Other Parameters

• minimizePayload  – Optimizes network throughput and reduces downstream bandwidth usage. When enabled, the tool filters out unchanged columns from UPDATE and DELETE payloads, emitting only the table's identifying key columns and the specific columns modified by the transaction
  • 0 – capture all CDC data (default)
  • 1 – capture changed data only

Enabling this mode can break downstream consumers, pipelines, or stream processing components if they use unchanged columns for data filtering, routing, or transformations.

• cdcrestart – Determines if the Capture Process must check the SQL Server CDC capture job when no new changes have been captured for 15 minutes. If the job has stopped, the Capture Process starts it and registers a warning incident. The possible values are:
  • 1 – check and restart the CDC job (default value)
  • 0 – do not check the CDC job (use it when the CDC jobs are managed by another tool)
• includecomputedcols – Determines if the computed columns of the Source tables are included into the list of the replicated columns. The possible values are:
  • 0 – do not include the computed columns (default value)
  • 1 – include the computed columns
• pollingdelay – The parameter is used to specify number of seconds the Capture Process will wait after each database changes gathering
• preview – This parameter is used to validate list of the tables to be included into the replication along with the transformation rules. The possible values are:
  • 0 – do not use “preview” mode (default)
  • 1 – do not apply the configuration to the Capture Process but provide the list of the tables to be included into the replication along with the transformation
• autostart – Determines if the Process must be run automatically, the possible values are:
  • 0 – do not run the Process automatically (default value)
  • 1 – to run the Process automatically
• restartattempts – Number of attempts to restart the failed Capture Process automatically. The server checks the processes every 5 minutes. The value 0 disables the automatic restart. When the attempts are used up, the notification channels (see the “notification” parameter) are informed. The default value is 5.

Note – The number of attempts is restored to the full value as soon as the process makes progress after a failure.

• notification – The ids of the notification channels, separated by comma (see Monitoring Replication for the details on the channels), which are informed by e-mail when the process has failed and can not be restarted automatically any more (see the “restartattempts” parameter). By default nobody is notified.
• debuglevel – The level of debugging, possible values are 0-15, the default value is 0