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AWS Simple Workflow Service (SWF)

What is it​

A workflow orchestration service that helps developers create, run, and scale background jobs that have parallel or sequential steps.

What it's for​

Coordinate tasks in distributed applications, ensuring that steps are executed in the correct order and that the workflow state is maintained.

Use cases​

  • E-commerce order processing
  • Media processing workflows (e.g., video encoding)
  • Web application backends
  • Long-running business process automation
  • Orchestration of human and automated tasks

Key points​

  • Task orchestration: Allows coordinating tasks that can be executed by different components (human or automated)
  • Persistent state: Maintains workflow state, even in case of failures
  • Fault tolerance: Handles task failures and allows retries
  • Flexibility: Allows defining complex workflows with conditional logic and parallelism
  • Programmatic: More focused on a programmatic approach to defining workflows

Comparison​

  • AWS Simple Workflow Service (SWF) vs. AWS Step Functions: SWF is an older, lower-level service for workflow orchestration. It offers great flexibility but requires more code to implement and manage. It's more suitable for use cases where very granular control over the workflow and interaction with external components is needed. Step Functions is the evolution of SWF, offering a more modern and visual approach to workflow orchestration, being serverless, easier to use, and better integrated with other AWS services.