The kv.rangefeed.catchup_scan_iterator_optimization.enabled is an improvement that has been defaulted to true for v22.1. We intend to default it to true for future patch versions of v21.2.

I suggest we retire (remove) the setting for v22.1, as we did for this related setting.

Retiring this setting will remove “one more thing” to troubleshoot when dealing with CDC problems. It will simplify the support process, and make this article (internal) largely moot moving forward, a good thing.

This is not a zero-risk change, but I believe we are highly confident in it. It has been running in production for large customers, and on the v22.1 branch, for some time. See this comment for details. As such, I believe the benefits outweigh the risks.

Jira issue: CRDB-15942