Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for orchestrating complex workflows and data pipelines. It allows you to schedule, monitor, and manage workflows, making automating and coordinating various tasks within your data infrastructure easier. Airflow was originally developed by Airbnb and later open-sourced under the Apache Software Foundation.
What is Apache Airflow?
Apache Airflow is an open-source platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows, allowing users to define, execute, and manage complex data pipelines.
Here are key features and concepts associated with Apache Airflow:
- Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG): In Airflow, workflows are represented as Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). A DAG is a collection of tasks with defined dependencies, each representing a unit of work.
- Scheduler: Airflow comes with a built-in scheduler that orchestrates the execution of tasks based on their defined dependencies and schedule intervals. It ensures that tasks are executed in the correct order.
- Operators: Operators define the type of work to be done by a task. Airflow provides a variety of built-in operators for common tasks like Python scripts, Bash commands, SQL queries, and more. You can also create custom operators.
- Tasks: Tasks are instances of operators within a DAG. Each task corresponds to a specific unit of work and can be configured with parameters such as input/output, retries, and timeouts.
- Web UI: Airflow includes a web-based user interface that allows users to monitor the progress of their workflows, view task logs, and manually trigger or pause workflows.
- Metadata Database: Airflow uses a metadata database (usually based on SQL databases like SQLite, MySQL, or PostgreSQL) to store information about DAGs, tasks, and their execution history.
- Extensibility: Airflow is highly extensible and allows you to create custom operators, sensors, and hooks to integrate with external systems and services.
- Concurrency and Parallelism: Airflow supports the execution of tasks in parallel, and you can configure the level of concurrency based on your infrastructure requirements.
- Dynamic Workflow Generation: Airflow enables the dynamic generation of workflows by using parameters and templates. This allows you to create flexible and reusable workflows.
- Integration with External Systems: Airflow can integrate with various external systems and services, including cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure, as well as databases, message queues, and more.
To start with Apache Airflow, you can install it using Python’s package manager (pip) and set up your DAGs and tasks using Python code.
Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)
A Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) is a graph structure comprising nodes connected by directed edges, with each edge indicating a one-way relationship between nodes. The defining feature of a DAG is its lack of cycles, meaning there are no closed paths within the graph. This acyclic nature allows for effective modeling of dependencies and relationships in diverse fields such as project management, task scheduling, compiler optimization, data processing, genetics, and more. Nodes in a DAG represent entities or tasks, while edges depict the directed flow or dependencies between them. This versatile structure finds applications in representing and solving problems involving complex relationships, making it a fundamental concept in various computational and scientific domains.
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This article was originally published on Collegelib in 2024.