Step Functions Getting Started
AWS Step Functions is a visual workflow service that makes it easy to orchestrate over 220 AWS services and HTTPS endpoints such as SaaS applications into scalable, reliable, and resilient application. It supports common architectural and workflow patterns which makes it easy to coordinate the components of distributed applications as a series of durable steps in a visual workflow. Step Functions' workflows are written using Amazon States Language (ASL), defined as state machines, composed of steps called state, and can be used to orchestrate multiple AWS services.
Step Functions gives developers the ability to build and update applications quickly by managing the logic and implementing branching, parallel execution, and timeouts. Step Functions can also manage state, checkpoints, and restarts for you to make sure your application executes in order and as expected. It has built-in try/catch, retry, and rollback capabilities to help you deal with errors and exceptions automatically.
If you have a workload that requires co-ordinating distinct tasks, aggregation of results, fan-in and fan-out patterns, or that require human intervention, you may consider using Step Functions.
Common use cases include large-scale data processing, orchestration of microservices to build event-driven architectures, create data and machine learning pipelines, integration with SaaS applications, build generative AI applications, and automate IT security and processes.
No matter whether you are new to Step Functions or you already have a use case in mind, choose your own path and follow the curated learning steps to get started on Step Functions for a few of the common use cases.