In accordance with an embodiment, described herein is a system and method for heterogeneous database replication from a remote server, for example a remote database server. A capture process can be registered as a replication slave to the remote server, and configured to receive transaction event data from that server. Transaction log events associated with a modification to the database at the remote server can be processed, and output as change data, in a canonical format output, for use with one or more heterogeneous targets, for example a target database server or message queue. The process enables capture of transaction log events associated with database transactions at a remote server that may be located on a different computer or network, or within an access-restricted environment such as a cloud environment, without the need to create additional copies of its transaction logs.