What is AWS Data Pipeline?
AWS Data Pipeline is a web service for reliably processing and moving data between various AWS services at defined intervals. The service orchestrates ETL workflows, schedules their execution, and automatically handles errors and retries.
Data Pipeline supports data processing with EC2 or EMR and enables data transfer between S3, DynamoDB, RDS, Redshift, and on-premises systems. With preconditions and dependencies, you define complex workflows that execute reliably and repeatably.
Core Features
- Scheduling: Time-based or event-driven execution of data workflows
- Fault Tolerance: Automatic retries, notifications, and failover
- Data Validation: Preconditions check data availability before processing
- Hybrid Support: Connection to on-premises data sources via Data Pipeline Agent
- Templates: Predefined templates for common scenarios like S3-to-RDS copies
Typical Use Cases
Daily Data Exports: Export data daily from production databases to S3 for analysis. Data Pipeline starts the job automatically, checks data availability, and notifies on problems.
EMR Cluster Orchestration: Start EMR clusters for batch processing, run Spark or Hadoop jobs, and terminate the cluster automatically upon completion. Data Pipeline optimizes costs for periodic big data jobs.
Database Synchronization: Replicate data between different databases or regions. Data Pipeline performs incremental copies based on timestamps or change tracking.
Benefits
- Reliable execution with automatic retries and error handling
- Support for on-premises data sources via Data Pipeline Agent
- No server infrastructure to manage (compute is automatically provisioned)
- Cost control through scheduled cluster provisioning
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with AWS Data Pipeline: workflow design, migration to modern alternatives like AWS Glue or Step Functions, and optimization of existing pipelines.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AWS Data Pipeline?
AWS Data Pipeline is a web service for reliably processing and moving data between various AWS compute and storage services and on-premises data sources at defined intervals.
How does Data Pipeline differ from AWS Glue?
AWS Glue is serverless and optimized for ETL jobs, while Data Pipeline offers more control over the execution environment (EC2, EMR). For new projects, AWS often recommends AWS Glue or Step Functions.
Which data sources does Data Pipeline support?
Data Pipeline supports S3, DynamoDB, RDS, Redshift, EMR, and on-premises databases. You can also run custom activities with shell commands or custom scripts.
How does error handling work?
Data Pipeline provides automatic retries on failures, notifications via SNS, and detailed logs. You can define dependencies between activities and use preconditions for conditional execution.