Cloud Composer versioning overview

Cloud Composer 1 | Cloud Composer 2

This page describes Cloud Composer versioning and lists differences between major Cloud Composer versions.

• Cloud Composer has two major versions: Cloud Composer 1 and Cloud Composer 2.
• Cloud Composer environments are based on Cloud Composer images, which are versioned.
• You can select a Cloud Composer image version when you create or upgrade your environment.

Major versions of Cloud Composer

Cloud Composer has two major versions:

• Cloud Composer 2. This version has autoscaling environments.
• Cloud Composer 1. This version has manual scaling.

The following table lists major differences between Cloud Composer 1 and Cloud Composer 2.

	Cloud Composer 1	Cloud Composer 2
Cloud Composer image versions	composer-1.x.x	composer-2.x.x
Airflow versions	Airflow 1.10.* and Airflow 2	Airflow 2
Python versions	3.8.6, 2.7.17	3.8.6
Environment's cluster	Standard mode VPC-native or Routes-based Google Kubernetes Engine cluster	Autopilot mode VPC-native Google Kubernetes Engine cluster
Horizontal scaling	Can adjust the number of nodes in the environment's cluster. This changes the number of Airflow workers. Can adjust the number of Airflow schedulers.	Automatically scaling number of Airflow workers, based on demand. Can set and change upper and lower limits for the number of workers. Can adjust the number of Airflow schedulers.
Vertical scaling	Can set machine types for cluster nodes, Airflow web server and database when creating an environment. Can change machine types for Airflow web server and database.	Can set and change workloads configuration: CPU, memory, and storage parameters for Airflow workers, schedulers, web server, and database.
Pricing model	Cloud Composer 1 pricing model	Cloud Composer 2 pricing model
Access control	Cloud Composer roles	Cloud Composer roles. Uses Workload Identity and requires additional permissions for the Cloud Composer Service Agent account.
Environment architecture	Cloud Composer 1 environment architecture	Cloud Composer 2 environment architecture
Private IP networking	VPC peerings	VPC peerings or Private Service Connect
Terraform support	Can create and update Cloud Composer 1 environments.	Can create and update Cloud Composer 2 environments.
CMEK	Supported	Supported
Web server access controls	Supported	Supported
Restarting web server	Supported	Supported
Web server plugins	Supported in Airflow 1 environments with disabled DAG serialization.	Supported
Installing custom plugins	Supported	Supported
Maintenance operations	All tasks can be impacted.	Tasks that take less than 55 minutes to execute are not impacted.
Asynchronous DAG loading	Supported in Airflow 1	Not supported
DAG serialization	Always enabled in Airflow 2. Can be disabled in Airflow 1.	Always enabled in Airflow 2.
Support for Network Tags	Yes	Yes
Cluster nodes with GPUs	Yes	No

Cloud Composer images

To run Apache Airflow, Cloud Composer builds Docker images that bundle Airflow releases with other common binaries and Python libraries.

Cloud Composer images include Airflow modifications that are specific to Cloud Composer and unsuitable for the upstream Airflow codebase. The preinstalled packages along with Cloud Composer-specific Airflow changes are referred to collectively as Cloud Composer versions.

Google periodically releases new Cloud Composer images that include new Airflow releases and Cloud Composer improvements.

Cloud Composer 1 version support

New Cloud Composer 1 versions are released until the end of March 2023. All released Cloud Composer 1 versions follow the version deprecation policy and are supported according to it.

Some new Cloud Composer features might be supported only in Cloud Composer 2. You can check which features are supported only in Cloud Composer 2 in the table that lists major differences between versions.

Cloud Composer version deprecation and support

Google supports Cloud Composer versions for a period of time after the version release. During this period, Cloud Composer environments that use these versions are fully supported.

Cloud Composer version support is defined as follows:

• 0-12 months from the release date: Cloud Composer environments running these versions are fully supported.
• 12-18 months from the release date: Cloud Composer environments running these versions are unsupported except to notify customers about security issues.
• 18+ months from the release date: Cloud Composer environments running these versions are unsupported and entirely user managed.

Note: You can use Cloud Composer versions after the date they are no longer supported. For example, if your environment is based on a Cloud Composer version that is past the support period, the environment still works and you can keep using it. In this case, we recommend you to upgrade your environment to a supported version.

Airflow version support

Airflow follows the semantical software versioning schema. Each version of Airflow has a major, minor, and patch version.

For a list of Airflow versions supported in each Cloud Composer version, see the list of Cloud Composer versions.

Airflow 1 version support

• Cloud Composer supports Airflow 1.10.15, which is the latest released version of Airflow 1.

Airflow 2 version support

• In each release, Cloud Composer supports two minor versions of Airflow 2.

  For example, Cloud Composer 1.17.0 supports Airflow 2.0.* and Airflow 2.1.*.

• For each minor version of Airflow 2, Cloud Composer supports one patch version.

  For example, for Airflow 2.1.*, Cloud Composer supports Airflow 2.1.2.

• When a new patch version of Airflow 2 becomes available in Cloud Composer, the corresponding release has two patch versions of Airflow 2 available for the same minor version of Airflow. The previous patch version is then removed in one of the next releases.

  For example, Cloud Composer 1.17.4 supports both Airflow 2.1.2 and Airflow 2.1.4.

• Cloud Composer can skip some Airflow patch versions between releases of Cloud Composer. In addition, if there are functional, quality, or performance issues with a specific patch version of Airflow, Cloud Composer can also skip this version.

  For example, Airflow 2.1.3 is skipped and Airflow 2.1.4 is available.

• A Cloud Composer release running a stable Airflow version can include Airflow updates that are backported from a later Airflow version.

Cloud Composer version schema

Cloud Composer image versioning schema captures Cloud Composer and Airflow versions:

composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z

Where

• composer-a.b.c is the version of Cloud Composer-managed customizations
• airflow-x.y.z is the Airflow release

Version aliases

Cloud Composer 2 supports the following version aliases:

Alias	Cloud Composer version	Airflow version
composer-2-airflow-2	Latest version of Cloud Composer 2	Latest version of Airflow 2
composer-2-airflow-x.y	Latest version of Cloud Composer 2	Latest version of Airflow within x.y major and minor versions
composer-2-airflow-x.y.z	Latest version of Cloud Composer 2	Specified version of Airflow
composer-2.b.c-airflow-x.y	Specified version of Cloud Composer 2	Latest version of Airflow available within x.y major and minor versions

Cloud Composer 1 supports the following version aliases:

Alias	Cloud Composer version	Airflow version
composer-1-airflow-2	Latest version of Cloud Composer 1	Latest version of Airflow 2
composer-1-airflow-1	Latest version of Cloud Composer 1	Latest version of Airflow 1
composer-1-airflow-x.y	Latest version of Cloud Composer 1	Latest version of Airflow within x.y major and minor versions
composer-1-airflow-x.y.z	Latest version of Cloud Composer 1	Specified version of Airflow
composer-1.b.c-airflow-x.y	Specified version of Cloud Composer 1	Latest version of Airflow available within x.y major and minor versions.

The following version aliases point to Cloud Composer 1. You can still use them, but consider switching to aliases for your version of Cloud Composer.

• composer-latest-airflow-x.y is equal to composer-1-airflow-x.y.
• composer-latest-airflow-x.y.z is equal to composer-1-airflow-x.y.z.

Caution: using a version alias such as composer-a-airflow-x.y.z does not provide automatic version upgrades for an environment. Cloud Composer resolves the version alias to composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z when it creates your environment.

Version arguments in Google Cloud CLI

When you create or upgrade a Cloud Composer environment using Google Cloud CLI, you can specify Cloud Composer and Airflow versions:

• --image-version argument specifies Cloud Composer and Airflow versions:

  • composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z format creates an environment with the specified versions of Cloud Composer and Airflow.
  • Version aliases first resolve to the composer-a.b.c-airflow-x.y.z format and then create an environment with the specified versions of Cloud Composer and Airflow.

• --airflow-version specifies the Airflow version in two formats:

  • The x.y.z format is for the latest version of Cloud Composer 1 and the specified version of Airflow. This format is equal to the composer-1-airflow-x.y.z version alias.

  • The x.y format is for the latest version of Cloud Composer 1 and the latest version of Airflow available within x.y major and minor versions. This format is equal to the composer-1-airflow-x.y version alias.

What's next

• Cloud Composer images
• Create an environment
• Upgrade an existing Cloud Composer environment