Cheatsheet: Dataflow

Topic Overview

Deploy, run, and scale Apache Beam pipelines on Google Cloud Dataflow.

Syntax Snapshot

# Execute pipeline on cloud runner
python pipeline.py \
  --runner=DataflowRunner \
  --project=my-gcp-project \
  --region=us-central1 \
  --temp_location=gs://my-bucket/temp \
  --staging_location=gs://my-bucket/staging

Key Points

• Fully managed, serverless runner for Apache Beam.
• Autoscaling: Automatically allocates worker VMs based on throughput and system lag.
• Streaming Engine: Offloads state storage to GCP managed engine.
• Flex Templates: Packaged inside Docker containers for dynamic configuration.

Production Recommendations