Apache Airflow: Data Pipeline Orchestration Basics
Learn Apache Airflow fundamentals—DAGs, scheduling, operators, and deployment patterns—so you can orchestrate reliable data pipelines with clear monitoring and retries.
Apache Airflow is the industry standard for orchestrating complex data workflows. This guide will get you started.
What is Apache Airflow?
Airflow is a platform to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor workflows as Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs).
Core Concepts
DAGs and Tasks
from airflow import DAG
from airflow.operators.python import PythonOperator
from datetime import datetime
with DAG(
'my_data_pipeline',
start_date=datetime(2024, 1, 1),
schedule_interval='@daily',
catchup=False
) as dag:
extract = PythonOperator(
task_id='extract',
python_callable=extract_data
)
transform = PythonOperator(
task_id='transform',
python_callable=transform_data
)
load = PythonOperator(
task_id='load',
python_callable=load_data
)
extract >> transform >> load
Task Dependencies
| Pattern | Syntax | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Sequential | a >> b >> c | Linear flow |
| Parallel | [a, b] >> c | Fan-in |
| Branching | BranchOperator | Conditional |
Best Practices
1. Idempotent Tasks
Tasks should produce the same result when run multiple times:
def load_data(ds, **context):
# Delete existing data for this date
delete_partition(ds)
# Then load new data
insert_data(ds)
2. Atomic Operations
Each task should be self-contained. For data validation, see Data Quality Testing: Ensuring Trust in Your Data.
3. Proper Monitoring
Integrate with your monitoring stack. See Monitoring Data Pipelines: Observability Best Practices for details.
Integrating with Python Pipelines
Use Airflow to orchestrate your Building Data Pipelines with Python: A Complete Guide:
from airflow.operators.python import PythonVirtualenvOperator
run_pipeline = PythonVirtualenvOperator(
task_id='run_etl',
python_callable=run_my_pipeline,
requirements=['pandas', 'sqlalchemy']
)
Conclusion
Airflow provides powerful orchestration capabilities. Start simple and add complexity as your needs grow.
Orchestrate with confidence.