From the course: AWS for Developers: Step Functions

State machine concepts - Amazon Web Services (AWS) Tutorial

From the course: AWS for Developers: Step Functions

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State machine concepts

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- AWS step functions are essentially a state machine. Which is a collection of states or steps, each one will an input, an output and relationship to all the steps. These construct is really useful when you have to create a process that has many steps that you need to keep track of. You see, ever since computers came around, not much has changed in the way processes are designed. You have an input that comes from a file, a database or a keyboard, the input goes through a series of steps and in return you get a database record, an image or a numeric calculation. Of course a state machine doesn't have to be that simple. It can involve branching decision making, parallel task, human interactions and computation that could take hours or even days. For our purpose, we will create a state machine to help us execute a group of Lambda functions. As per the specific workflow. Also need to pass input across function calls, handle the additional input values generated by the functions themselves. And of course handle any error that may occur along the way. If you work to do this without step functions, all this state and task logic will certainly require an additional Lambda function to handle the workflow. So, we certainly get a benefit from using a step function or state machine. If you were to do this without a step functions, all this date and tasks logic would certainly require an additional Lambda function to handle the workflow. So, we certainly get a benefit from using a step function, state machine. So remember if you feel the need to write a Lambda, just to call them, manage all the Lambdas, consider using AWS step functions instead.

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