Overview

A source in Materialize represents an external data source. More concretely, it specifies the connection and the ingestion configuration to use for a particular external data source (e.g., PostgreSQL, Kafka). For those familiar with PostgreSQL’s foreign servers and foreign tables, a source is like a foreign server, and the tables (or subsources) created from the source are like foreign tables.

Before creating a source in Materialize, you must ensure that the external data source is properly configured and accessible so that Materialize can establish a connection and ingest its data. The exact configuration depends on the type of data source.

Connectors

Materialize bundles native connectors for the following external systems:

Sources and clusters

Sources require compute resources in Materialize, and so need to be associated with a cluster. If possible, dedicate a cluster just for sources.

See also Operational guidelines.

Related pages

• CREATE SOURCE