What is a data pipeline DAG and why is it important?

Updated May 15, 2026

Short answer

A DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) represents data processing tasks and their dependencies.

Deep explanation

DAGs define execution order in systems like Apache Spark and Airflow. Each node is a transformation or task, and edges define dependencies. DAG execution allows optimization, parallelism, and fault recovery by re-executing only failed stages.

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