Managing replication slots in Postgres is crucial to prevent WAL bloat and ensure efficient Change Data Capture (CDC) processes. Best practices include using the pgoutput plug-in, defining maximum replication slot sizes, enabling heartbeats for idle databases, and utilizing table-level publications and filters to optimize resource usage. These strategies help maintain database performance and avoid operational issues.

This tutorial guides users through setting up a complete Change Data Capture (CDC) pipeline using Debezium and Kafka Connect to stream changes from a PostgreSQL database. It covers the prerequisites, infrastructure setup with Docker, PostgreSQL configuration, connector registration, and observing change events in Kafka topics.