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Apache Airflow

Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring programmatically defined workflows, commonly represented as directed acyclic graphs.

How 5 Manning books explain it

Data Pipelines with Apache Airflow, Second Edition

Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring workflows, especially data pipelines.

How it is used
Orchestrates scheduled or event-triggered data pipelines whose dependent tasks may work across external systems.
How deep it goes
Works through DAG execution, local setup, failure recovery, and production-operation choices rather than stopping at a tool definition.
Examples
Uses a local standalone installation, Docker Compose services, UI views, and a failed download task.
What you can do after
Build it from scratch: define and run a DAG, then diagnose failed tasks and selectively rerun them through the UI.

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Architecting an Apache Iceberg Lakehouse

Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring workflows as directed acyclic graphs.

How it is used
Orchestrates conditional, retryable, and observable Apache Iceberg maintenance workflows at lakehouse scale.
How deep it goes
Explains DAG structure and demonstrates metadata checks, task dependencies, retries, and Spark-triggered compaction, while deferring broader platform internals.
Examples
Uses a daily compaction DAG, conditional small-file checks, snapshot expiration, orphan-file removal, and Prometheus metric emission.
What you can do after
Operate/configure Iceberg maintenance by defining Airflow DAGs that inspect metadata and trigger Spark SQL procedures conditionally.

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Delivering Machine Learning Projects: From design to deployment

Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring programmatic workflows.

How it is used
Orchestrates data pipelines supporting import, preparation, exploratory analysis, model training, evaluation, and production.
How deep it goes
Explains pipeline abstraction, task chaining, execution management, and inspectability without detailing Airflow implementation.
Examples
Uses DAG-shaped workflows and processes for importing data, preparing features, training models, evaluating models, and deploying production flows.
What you can do after
Operate and inspect chained data processes while reducing manual bookkeeping, script-management effort, and workflow error.

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Designing Deep Learning Systems: A guide for software engineers

Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring batch-oriented workflows.

How it is used
Orchestrates scheduled, batch-oriented ETL and data workflows through code, task dependencies, execution management, and monitoring.
How deep it goes
Explains DAGs, operators, dependencies, dynamic tasks, interfaces, and a representative workflow, but does not detail platform internals.
Examples
Demonstrates a daily pipeline that senses new data, transforms it, creates a database table, and exposes execution through UI and CLI commands.
What you can do after
Operate scheduled workflows by defining Python DAGs, assigning operators, declaring dependencies, deploying code, and inspecting execution status.

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Financial AI in Practice

Apache Airflow is an open-source platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring workflows programmatically.

How it is used
Orchestrates scheduled data tasks for credit-data ingestion and monthly merges.
How deep it goes
Defines a minimal monthly DAG and identifies production controls, but stops short of a full production pipeline.
Examples
Merges monthly usage, bureau, and demographic data into a credit data mart and mentions a Kaggle credit-data example.
What you can do after
Apply Airflow to schedule and orchestrate data tasks in a credit-scoring workflow while accounting for production controls.

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Related concepts

These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.