From Step Functions To Temporal On EKS: Durable Workflows At Scale Without Breaking The Bank

Managing workflow executions is a critical architectural requirement, especially when tracking action sequences. While AWS Step Functions is a popular managed service for orchestration, Temporal offers a compelling open-source alternative with durable execution capabilities.

Temporal provides a SaaS cloud offering (Temporal Cloud) and an open-source version deployable via Helm charts in your Kubernetes environment. Its durable execution feature ensures workflows resume from failure points, enhancing resilience.

Yedidya Schwartz highlights migrating from Step Functions to self-hosted Temporal on AWS EKS, balancing cost and scalability.

You Should Know:

1. Deploying Temporal on EKS

To install Temporal in your Kubernetes cluster:

helm repo add temporalio https://temporalio.github.io/helm-charts 
helm install temporal temporalio/temporal --namespace temporal --create-namespace

2. Key Temporal CLI Commands

Start a workflow:

temporal workflow start --task-queue my-queue --type MyWorkflow

List running workflows:

temporal workflow list

3. AWS Step Functions vs. Temporal

Step Functions: Managed, serverless, but limited customization.
Temporal: Self-hosted, highly customizable, supports event sourcing.

4. Sample Workflow in Go

package main

import ( 
"go.temporal.io/sdk/workflow" 
)

func MyWorkflow(ctx workflow.Context) error { 
// Workflow logic 
return nil 
}

5. Monitoring Temporal with Grafana

kubectl port-forward svc/temporal-web 8080:8080 -n temporal

Access the dashboard at `http://localhost:8080`.

What Undercode Say:

Temporal is a powerful alternative to AWS Step Functions, especially for teams needing fine-grained control over workflows. By leveraging EKS and Helm, you can deploy it cost-effectively while ensuring fault tolerance.

For large-scale systems, Temporal’s durable execution ensures workflows survive crashes, making it ideal for financial transactions, CI/CD pipelines, and data processing.

Key Linux/IT Commands to complement Temporal:

 Check Kubernetes pods 
kubectl get pods -n temporal

Debug Temporal worker logs 
kubectl logs -f <pod-name> -n temporal

Backup Temporal data (PostgreSQL) 
pg_dump -U temporal -h localhost temporal > temporal_backup.sql

AWS CLI to compare Step Functions cost 
aws stepfunctions list-state-machines