Creating a Basic Workflow in Amazon SWF

Creating a basic sequential workflow involves the following stages.

• Modeling a workflow, registering its type, and registering its activity types

• Developing and launching activity workers that perform activity tasks

• Developing and launching deciders that use the workflow history to determine what to do next

• Developing and launching workflow starters, that is, applications that start workflow executions

Modeling Your Workflow and Its Activities

To use Amazon SWF, model the logical steps in your application as activities. An activity represents a single logical step or task in your workflow. For example, authorizing a credit card is an activity that involves providing a credit card number and other information, and receiving an approval code or a message that the card was declined.

In addition to defining activities, you also need to define the coordination logic that handles decision points. For example, the coordination logic might schedule a different follow-up activity depending on whether the credit card was approved or declined.

The following figure shows an example of a sequential customer order workflow with four activities (Verify Order, Charge Credit Card, Ship Order, and Record Completion).