Staging data up to date with a Step Function
A state machine was created in AWS Step Functions to efficiently synchronize a staging database with production data.
The source database had grown so large that manually downloading and inserting it into the staging environment became a time-consuming challenge, often taking 12 hours or more. This process was previously handled manually by developers, adding significant overhead.The new solution automates the entire process and completes it in just 15 minutes. By leveraging a blue/green deployment strategy, a fresh staging database is created seamlessly, dramatically reducing downtime and manual effort. This approach has become a valuable time-saver for both developers and testers.
For maintainability, the Step Function and its dependencies are provisioned using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with AWS CDK. This ensures that the state machine, associated roles, Lambda functions, and other resources can be easily created, updated, or removed as needed. The use of IaC also simplifies deployment across environments and reduces the risk of manual errors.
By using AWS Step Functions, the solution operates in a serverless manner, provisioning infrastructure resources and executing workflows efficiently. Additionally, the state machine provides real-time visibility into its execution, showing the current step, inputs, and outputs, making it easy to monitor, debug, and optimize the workflow.