# Step Functions
#aws #cloud
Step Functions are a Finite State Machine implementation offered as a serverless service by AWS. Step Functions are made of state machines (workflows) and tasks. Tasks are individual states or single units of work. State machines orchestrate the work of AWS services, like Lambda functions. When one function ends, it triggers another function to begin. Although Max Duration is significantly different, Express workflow allows more scalability. Moreover, Express workflow pricing is constructed with more details since users will have to pay for the number of executions, including the duration and memory used for those executions. Standard workflow pricing requires users to pay only for each state transition that occurs.
AWS Step Functions is used to build distributed applications as a series of steps in a visual workflow. You can quickly build and run state machines to execute the steps of your application
How it works:
- Define the steps of your workflow in the JSON-based Amazon States Language. The visual console automatically graphs each step in the order of execution
- Start an execution to visualize and verify the steps of your application are operating as intended. The console highlights the real-time status of each step and provides a detailed history of every execution
- AWS Step Functions operates and scales the steps of your application and underlying compute for you to help ensure your application executes reliably under increasing demand