February 2022 Summaries

Astronomer is a key player in the Apache Airflow® ecosystem, providing tools and support for building, running, and observing data pipelines using this popular data orchestration platform. Apache Airflow®, originally developed at Airbnb, is widely adopted across various industries for its ability to programmatically author, schedule, and monitor data pipelines, leveraging Python for flexibility and customization. With a vibrant community of contributors, Airflow continually evolves with new features and improvements, as demonstrated by the significant advancements in version 2.0, which addressed scheduler reliability, scalability, and performance issues. Astronomer has been instrumental in driving Airflow's development and expansion, contributing to features like the high-availability scheduler and the full REST API, while also focusing on enhancing the DAG authoring experience for data engineers. As Astronomer continues to develop Airflow, including future releases such as Airflow 2.3, they aim to democratize its use, ensuring it meets the needs of data teams across various sectors with their Astro platform, a scalable and adaptable data orchestration solution.

Airflow users should upgrade to the latest version of Airflow, which offers improved features and performance. Familiarizing yourself with core concepts and components, such as DAGs and operators, is crucial for efficient data orchestration. Keeping DAGs light by avoiding top-level API calls and database connections can improve performance. Processing small amounts of data wisely by using the Kubernetes Executor and custom XCom backend can also help. Consistent coding practices, including idempotency, retries, and provider packages, are essential for a smooth Airflow experience. Staying consistent with project structure and standards can democratize your data stack, making it easier for non-engineers to work with data. Finally, leveraging the Astronomer framework can provide instant deployment of the latest Airflow version, optimized infrastructure, and expert support to accelerate your data strategy.