In the context of Data Engineering, workflow orchestration refers to the process of scheduling and arranging tasks that form your data pipeline. A workflow orchestration tool allows you to schedule, run, and observe the entire process.

Apache Airflow Dagster Prefect

Workflow Orchestration Advantages

  • Create complex custom workflows
  • Makes it easier to create idempotent workflows
  • Alert you if something fails
  • Allows you to gracefully retry and recover from failures

Workflow Orchestration Disadvantages

  • Adds complexity in scheduling
  • Requires additional infrastructure and maintenance costs