The document provides an introduction to Apache Airflow, a tool for building, scheduling, and monitoring data pipelines comprised of interconnected processing elements. Key concepts include operators, DAGs, tasks, hooks, connections, variables, and XComs, which facilitate task execution and communication in data workflows. It also outlines a simple example of a data pipeline workflow involving data extraction, storage, and notifications.

1. Airflow
for beginners
https://github.com/karpenkovarya/airflow_for_beginners

2. What is Airflow?
It is a tool to BUILD, SCHEDULE and MONITOR
data pipelines
Set of data processing elements connected in series.
The output of one element is the input of the next one.

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4. Building blocks
of Airflow
Operator
(Worker)
Knows how to perform a task
and has the tools to do it.
Example:
Python Operator
Postgres Operator
Bash Operator
Email Operator
DAG
(Protocol /
Instructions)
Describes the
order of tasks and
what to do if task is failing.
Example:
Run Task A, when it is finished, run
Task B. If one of the tasks failed, stop
the whole process and send me a
notification.
Task
(Specific job)
Job that is done by an
Operator.
Example:
- Load data from some API using
Python Operator
- Write data to the database using
MySQL Operator
Hooks
Interfaces to the external
platforms and databases.
Implements common interface
(all hooks look very similar) and
use Connections
Example:
S3 Hook
Slack Hook
HDFS Hook
Connection
Credentials to the external
systems that can be securely
stored in the Airflow.
Example:
Postgres Connection = Connection
string to the Postgres database
AWS Connection = AWS access
keys
Variables
Like environment
variables.
Can store arbitrary
information and be used in
the Tasks
Examples:
Stack Overflow base URL
Gmail Client ID and Secret
XComs
Let’s Tasks exchange
small messages.

6. I
Create
Questions
table
II
Store data
from Stack
Overflow
III
Write filtered
questions to
S3
IV
Render HTML
template
V
Send me an
email
Postgres
Connection
Postgres
Connection
Postgres
Connection
S3
Connection
Python Operator
Python Operator
Python Operator
Postgres Hook
S3
Connection
S3
Hook
Postgres Hook S3
HookPostgres
Operator
XCom
XCom
Variables
Variables
Email
Operator

8. What have we learned?
- What is Apache Airflow
- What is a data pipeline
- Main Airflow concepts (DAG, Task, Operator, Connection, etc.)
- First pipeline

9. Thank you!
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