Google Cloud Dataflow is a fully managed service for stream and batch data processing based on Apache Beam. It provides a serverless approach to data processing, automatically handling infrastructure management, scaling, and optimization.

Key features include:

• Unified Model: Single programming model for both batch and stream processing
• Auto-scaling: Automatically adjusts resources based on data volume
• Serverless: No infrastructure management required
• Apache Beam SDK: Uses open-source SDKs for Java, Python, and Go
• Integration: Native integration with other Google Cloud services

Dataflow is used for ETL operations, real-time analytics, data pipeline automation, stream processing, and building data transformation workflows. It abstracts away the complexity of distributed processing while providing high performance and reliability.