I've been diving deep into Step Function Express lately, and it's clear that it can replace many AWS Lambda functions with significant advantages, like lower costs, no cold starts, and no concurrency limits. However, I'm facing a major challenge: Step Function Express can't run within a VPC. This means I'm unable to connect to services like ValKey or Redis clusters, as well as other internal services located in private subnets. Are there any updates or plans to enable Step Function Express to run inside a VPC similar to Lambda functions? I'd also love to hear how others are integrating Step Functions into their microservices and workflows!
2 Answers
You can kick off step functions using AWS Lambda, so if you need VPC access, just have the Lambda handle that part. A lot of my step function workflows mainly involve calling Lambdas instead. But, I get your point—if you’re paying for Step Function Express and just calling a Lambda, you might as well stick to using just the Lambda.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Step Functions! I love using them, especially since the introduction of JSONata for automating AWS tasks. Regarding your question about VPC access, while it seems complicated, I’ve heard that using EventBridge can help Step Functions connect to private APIs. It’s a bit of a hassle to set up, though; honestly, a straightforward implementation would be way better. Here's a link to their blog about it if you're interested: aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/ ... . For VPC projects, I typically create a small Lambda function triggered by the state machine for further processing.
Thanks for sharing! It sounds like creating a 'Data API' with a Fargate instance could be an effective workaround for connecting to Valkey. I agree that the ability to run Step Function Express in a VPC would significantly improve its usefulness.
Step Functions are definitely in my top AWS services too! They could use better documentation, but once you get the hang of it, it's incredibly powerful. I managed to process a terabyte of data in five minutes for just a couple of bucks!
Exactly! If you’re using Step Function Express mainly for things like caching or database fallbacks, having that capability within a VPC would really enhance its functionality. It feels limited without that access.