All 7 AWS Step Functions questions
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What is AWS Step Functions and what problem does it solve for coordinating multi step workflows? How does the Amazon States Language define the structure and logic of a Step Functions state machine? How does Step Functions handle error handling and automatic retries for failed steps within a workflow? How does the Map state in Step Functions support processing a large collection of items in parallel or sequentially? How does the Distributed Map state in Step Functions support processing extremely large datasets that would exceed the limits of a standard Map state? How can Step Functions be used to orchestrate long running human approval workflows using the callback pattern with task tokens?
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What is the difference between Standard and Express workflows in Step Functions?

Beginner

Answer

Standard workflows are designed for long running, durable processes that can run for up to a year, providing exactly once execution guarantees and full execution history visibility, while Express workflows are optimized for high volume, short duration workloads lasting up to five minutes, offering at least once execution semantics and lower cost per execution, making the choice largely dependent on whether your workflow is a long running business process or a high throughput, short lived event processing task.
aws stepfunctions create-state-machine --name my-express-workflow --type EXPRESS --definition file://workflow.json --role-arn arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/StepFunctionsRole
Real-world example A company processing millions of short lived IoT sensor events per day uses Express workflows for their high volume, low cost requirements, while using a Standard workflow for their less frequent but critical multi day customer onboarding process.

Common follow-ups: How does pricing differ between Standard and Express workflows?;What execution guarantees does each workflow type provide?

Lambda & Serverless;Amazon Kinesis & Data Streaming
All 7 AWS Step Functions questions