Amazon Simple Workflow (SWF) Developer Guide

by Amazon Web Services

NOTE – A new version of the Amazon Simple Workflow Service Developer Guide is available at This is official Amazon Web Services (AWS) documentation for Amazon Simple Workflow (SWF). This developer guide introduces Amazon SWF workflows and provides an in-depth look at the structure and components of a workflow. The guide teaches you how to use Amazon SWF to build applications that coordinate tasks across distributed components, without worrying about underlying complexities such as progress tracking and state maintenance. Amazon SWF is suitable for a range of use cases that require coordination of tasks, including media processing, web application back-ends, business process workflows, and analytics pipelines. This documentation is offered for free here as a Kindle book, or you can read it online or in PDF format at

345 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 5, 2012