Question 658 of 724
DVA-C02 Development with AWS Services Practice Question
A developer is building a serverless application using AWS Step Functions. The workflow must execute hundreds of thousands of short-lived tasks per day, each taking less than 30 seconds. The tasks need to run in parallel, and a small number of duplicate executions are acceptable. Which type of Step Functions workflow should the developer choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates assume Standard Workflow is always the default choice for Step Functions, overlooking the specific requirements for high throughput, short duration, and tolerance for duplicates that make Express Workflow the correct answer.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Express Workflow
Express Workflows are designed for high-volume, short-duration (under 5 minutes) event-processing workloads, executing hundreds of thousands of state transitions per second with at-least-once semantics. Since the tasks are short-lived (under 30 seconds), run in parallel, and tolerate a small number of duplicate executions, Express Workflow is the correct choice because it offers lower cost and higher throughput than Standard Workflow, which guarantees exactly-once execution and is better suited for long-running, auditable workflows.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Standard Workflow
Why it's wrong here
Standard Workflows are designed for long-running, durable, and auditable processes, offering exactly-once execution guarantees and supporting up to one year of execution time. However, their per-state-transition billing model and lower throughput limits (thousands of executions per second per region) make them significantly more expensive and less efficient for high-volume, short-duration tasks compared to Express Workflows, which are optimized for such scenarios.
- ✓
Express Workflow
Why this is correct
Express Workflows are optimized for high-volume, short-duration executions (under 5 minutes) with at-least-once delivery. They can handle hundreds of thousands of executions per second at a lower cost, making them suitable for this use case.
- ✗
AWS Lambda function with synchronous invocation
Why it's wrong here
While AWS Lambda functions are excellent for executing individual units of serverless code, relying solely on synchronous Lambda invocations for complex multi-step processes would necessitate manually implementing robust state management, retry mechanisms, error handling, and parallel execution logic within the Lambda code itself. This approach significantly increases development overhead, maintenance complexity, and the risk of unhandled failures, whereas Step Functions provides these orchestration capabilities natively.
- ✗
Amazon Simple Workflow Service (SWF)
Why it's wrong here
Amazon Simple Workflow Service (SWF) is an older, more complex orchestration service that requires developers to write explicit "decider" and "worker" code to manage workflow state and task execution. Its imperative programming model and higher operational overhead, including managing long-running worker processes, make it less suitable for modern serverless applications compared to AWS Step Functions, which offers a declarative, JSON-based state machine model for simpler and more efficient workflow definition and execution.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This DVA-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DVA-C02 exam.
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