What is Cloud Composer?
Cloud Composer is Google’s fully managed Apache Airflow service. The service orchestrates complex data pipelines and workflows without the overhead of infrastructure management. Teams define workflows as DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs) in Python.
Core Features
- Managed Airflow: No Airflow clusters to operate or patch
- DAG-based workflows: Define and version workflows as Python code
- Native GCP integration: Direct connection to BigQuery, Dataflow, GCS, and more
- Autoscaling: Composer 2 scales workers automatically based on demand
- Hybrid support: Orchestration of on-premises and cloud workloads
Common Use Cases
ETL Pipelines
Cloud Composer orchestrates daily or hourly ETL jobs. Data is extracted from various sources, transformed, and loaded into data warehouses like BigQuery.
ML Pipeline Orchestration
Training, validation, and deployment of ML models as an orchestrated workflow. Integration with Vertex AI for end-to-end MLOps.
Cross-System Integration
Workflows connecting multiple systems: loading CRM data into data lakes, generating reports, sending notifications.
Benefits
- Proven Airflow ecosystem with thousands of operators
- No infrastructure to manage
- Native integration with all GCP data services
- Centralized monitoring and alerting
Integration with innFactory
As a Google Cloud Partner, innFactory supports you with Cloud Composer: data pipeline architecture, migration of existing Airflow installations, DAG development, and performance optimization.
Available Tiers & Options
Composer 1
- Proven stability
- Lower cost
- Older Airflow versions
Composer 2
- Latest Airflow versions
- Better autoscaling
- Improved performance
- Higher base cost
Typical Use Cases
Technical Specifications
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Cloud Composer?
Cloud Composer is Google's managed Apache Airflow service. It orchestrates complex data pipelines and workflows across different systems.
What's the difference between Composer 1 and 2?
Composer 2 offers newer Airflow versions, better autoscaling, and faster environment updates. Composer 1 is cheaper but less flexible.
Which Airflow version does Cloud Composer support?
Composer 2 supports Airflow 2.x with regular updates. The exact version depends on the selected image.
Can I migrate existing Airflow DAGs?
Yes, existing DAGs can be imported into Cloud Composer. Adjustments are usually only needed for custom operators or local dependencies.
How does Cloud Composer scale?
Composer 2 offers automatic worker scaling based on queue length. The number of workers adapts to current load.
