Scale environments

Cloud Composer 3 | Cloud Composer 2 | Cloud Composer 1

This page describes how to scale Cloud Composer environments.

Scale vertically and horizontally

In Cloud Composer 1, you don't define specific CPU and memory resources for Cloud Composer and Airflow components such as workers and schedulers. Instead, you specify the number and type of machines for nodes in your environment's cluster.

Options for horizontal scaling:

  • Adjust the number of nodes
  • Adjust the number of schedulers

Options for vertical scaling:

  • Adjust the machine type of the Cloud SQL instance
  • Adjust the web server machine type

Adjust scheduler parameters

Your environment can run more than one Airflow scheduler at the same time. Use multiple schedulers to distribute load between several scheduler instances for better performance and reliability.

If your environment uses Airflow 2, you can specify a number of schedulers up to the number of nodes in your environment.

When scaling schedulers, use the following considerations:

  • Increasing the number of schedulers doesn't always improve Airflow performance.

    For example, this might happen when the extra scheduler isn't utilized, and consumes resources of your environment without contributing to the overall performance. The actual scheduler performance depends on the number of Airflow workers, the number of DAGs and tasks that run in your environment, and the configuration of both Airflow and the environment.

  • We recommend starting with two schedulers and then monitoring the performance of your environment.

For more information about configuring multiple schedulers, see Airflow documentation.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

    Go to Environments

  2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

  3. Go to the Environment configuration tab.

  4. In the Resources > Workloads configuration item, click Edit.

  5. In the Resources > Number of schedulers item, click Edit.

  6. In the Scheduler configuration pane, in the Number of schedulers field, specify the number of schedulers for your environment.

  7. Click Save.

gcloud

The following Airflow scheduler parameters are available:

  • --scheduler-count: the number of schedulers in your environment.

Run the following Google Cloud CLI command:

gcloud composer environments update ENVIRONMENT_NAME \
  --location LOCATION \
  --scheduler-count SCHEDULER_COUNT

Replace the following:

  • ENVIRONMENT_NAME: the name of the environment.

  • LOCATION: the region where the environment is located.

Example:

gcloud composer environments update example-environment \
  --location us-central1 \
  --scheduler-count 2

API

  1. Construct an environments.patch API request.

  2. In this request:

    1. In the updateMask parameter, specify the config.workloadsConfig.schedulerCount mask.

    2. In the request body, specify the number of schedulers for your environment.

"config": {
  "workloadsConfig": {
    "scheduler": {
      "count": SCHEDULER_COUNT
    }
  }
}

Replace the following:

  • ENVIRONMENT_NAME: the name of the environment.

  • LOCATION: the region where the environment is located.

  • SCHEDULER_COUNT: the number of schedulers.

Example:

// PATCH https://composer.googleapis.com/v1/projects/example-project/
// locations/us-central1/environments/example-environment?updateMask=
// config.workloadsConfig.scheduler

"config": {
  "workloadsConfig": {
    "scheduler": {
      "count": 2
    }
  }
}

Terraform

The following fields in the workloads_config.scheduler block control the Airflow scheduler parameters. Each scheduler uses the specified amount of resources.

  • scheduler.count: the number of schedulers in your environment.

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {
  provider = google-beta
  name = "ENVIRONMENT_NAME"
  region = "LOCATION"

  config {

    workloads_config {
      scheduler {
        count = SCHEDULER_COUNT
      }
    }

  }
}

Replace the following:

  • ENVIRONMENT_NAME: the name of the environment.

  • LOCATION: the region where the environment is located.

  • SCHEDULER_COUNT: the number of schedulers.

Example:

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {
  provider = google-beta
  name = "example-environment"
  region = "us-central1"

  config {

    workloads_config {
      scheduler {
        
        count = 2
      }
    }

  }
}

Adjust the number of nodes

You can change the number of nodes in your environment.

This number corresponds to the number of Airflow workers in your environment. In addition to running Airflow workers, your environment nodes also run Airflow schedulers and other environment components.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

    Go to Environments

  2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

  3. Go to the Environment configuration tab.

  4. In the Worker nodes > Node count item, click Edit.

  5. In the Worker nodes configuration pane, in the Node count field, specify the number of nodes in your environment.

  6. Click Save.

gcloud

The --node-count argument controls the number of nodes in your environment:

gcloud composer environments update ENVIRONMENT_NAME \
    --location LOCATION \
    --zone NODE_ZONE \
    --node-count NODE_COUNT

Replace the following:

  • ENVIRONMENT_NAME: the name of the environment.
  • LOCATION: the region where the environment is located.
  • NODE_COUNT: the number of nodes. The minimum number of nodes is 3.
  • NODE_ZONE: the Compute Engine zone for your environment VMs.

Example:

gcloud composer environments update example-environment \
    --location us-central1 \
    --zone us-central1-a \
    --node-count 6

API

  1. Create an environments.patch API request.

  2. In this request:

    1. In the updateMask parameter, specify the config.nodeCount mask.

    2. In the request body, specify the number of nodes for your environment.

  "config": {
    "nodeCount": NODE_COUNT
  }

Replace the following:

  • NODE_COUNT: the number of nodes. The minimum number of nodes is 3.

Example:

// PATCH https://composer.googleapis.com/v1/projects/example-project/
// locations/us-central1/environments/example-environment?updateMask=
// config.nodeCount

"config": {
  "nodeCount": 6
}

Terraform

The node_count field in the node_config block specifies the number of nodes in your environment.

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {

  config {
    node_config {
      node_count = NODE_COUNT
    }
}

Replace the following:

  • NODE_COUNT: the number of nodes.

Example:

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {
  name = "example-environment"
  region = "us-central1"

  config {

    node_config {
      node_count = 4
    }

}

Adjust the machine type of the Cloud SQL instance

You can change the machine type of the Cloud SQL instance that stores the Airflow database of your environment.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

    Go to Environments

  2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

  3. Go to the Environment configuration tab.

  4. In the Resources > Cloud SQL machine type item, click Edit.

  5. In the Cloud SQL configuration pane, in the Cloud SQL machine type drop-down list, select the machine type for the Cloud SQL instance of your environment.

  6. Click Save.

gcloud

The --cloud-sql-machine-type arguments controls the machine type of the Cloud SQL instance in your environment.

Run the following Google Cloud CLI command:

gcloud composer environments update ENVIRONMENT_NAME \
  --location LOCATION \
  --cloud-sql-machine-type SQL_MACHINE_TYPE

Replace the following:

Example:

gcloud composer environments update example-environment \
  --location us-central1 \
  --cloud-sql-machine-type db-n1-standard-2

API

  1. Create an environments.patch API request.

  2. In this request:

    1. In the updateMask parameter, specify the config.databaseConfig.machineType mask.

    2. In the request body, specify the machine type for the Cloud SQL instance.

{
  "config": {
    "databaseConfig": {
      "machineType": "SQL_MACHINE_TYPE"
    }
  }
}

Replace the following:

Example:

// PATCH https://composer.googleapis.com/v1/projects/example-project/
// locations/us-central1/environments/example-environment?updateMask=
// config.databaseConfig.machineType

{
  "config": {
    "databaseConfig": {
      "machineType": "db-n1-standard-2"
    }
  }
}

Terraform

The machine_type field in the database_config block specifies the machine type for the Cloud SQL instance.

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {

  config {
    database_config {
      machine_type = "SQL_MACHINE_TYPE"
    }
  }
}

Replace the following:

Example:

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {
  name = "example-environment"
  region = "us-central1"

  config {
    database_config {
      machine_type = "db-n1-standard-2"
    }
}

Adjust the web server machine type

You can change the machine type for the Airflow web server of your environment.

Console

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Environments page.

    Go to Environments

  2. In the list of environments, click the name of your environment. The Environment details page opens.

  3. Go to the Environment configuration tab.

  4. In the Resources > Web server machine type item, click Edit.

  5. In the Web server configuration pane, in the Web server machine type drop-down list, select the machine type for the Airflow web server.

  6. Click Save.

gcloud

The --web-server-machine-type arguments controls the machine type of the Airflow web server instance in your environment.

Run the following Google Cloud CLI command:

gcloud composer environments update ENVIRONMENT_NAME \
  --location LOCATION \
  --web-server-machine-type WS_MACHINE_TYPE

Replace the following:

Example:

gcloud composer environments update example-environment \
  --location us-central1 \
  --web-server-machine-type composer-n1-webserver-2

API

  1. Create an environments.patch API request.

  2. In this request:

    1. In the updateMask parameter, specify the config.webServerConfig.machineType mask.

    2. In the request body, specify the machine type for the web server.

{
  "config": {
    "webServerConfig": {
      "machineType": "WS_MACHINE_TYPE"
    }
  }
}

Replace the following:

Example:

// PATCH https://composer.googleapis.com/v1/projects/example-project/
// locations/us-central1/environments/example-environment?updateMask=
// config.webServerConfig.machineType

{
  "config": {
    "webServerConfig": {
      "machineType": "composer-n1-webserver-2"
    }
  }
}

Terraform

The machine_type field in the web_server_config block specifies the machine type for the Airflow web server instance.

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {

  config {
    web_server_config {
      machine_type = "WS_MACHINE_TYPE"
    }
  }
}

Replace the following:

Example:

resource "google_composer_environment" "example" {
  name = "example-environment"
  region = "us-central1"

  config {
    web_server_config {
      machine_type = "composer-n1-webserver-2"
    }
}

What's next