# Circuit Breaker with AWS Step Functions

DevFeed: [Circuit Breaker with AWS Step Functions](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/circuit-breaker-with-aws-step-functions-27972.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://tech.trivago.com/post/2019-04-09-circuitbreakerwithawsstepfunctions/>)

Author: Nikhil Kuriakose Follow

Published: 2019-04-09T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Trivago](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/trivago.md>)

Topics: [AWS Step Functions](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws-step-functions.md>), [distributed-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/distributed-systems.md>), [Error Handling](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/error-handling.md>), [Availability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/availability.md>), [Amazon Web Services](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws.md>)

Tags: [availability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/availability.md>), [aws-step-functions](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/aws-step-functions.md>), [backend](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/backend.md>), [cloud](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloud.md>), [distributed-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed-systems.md>), [error-handling](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/error-handling.md>), [external](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/external.md>), [health](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/health.md>), [lambda](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/lambda.md>), [pipelines](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pipelines.md>), [services](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/services.md>), [state](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/state.md>), [workflows](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/workflows.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains how trivago uses the circuit breaker pattern with AWS Step Functions to keep workflows responsive when external services are unresponsive, throttled, or return errors. It describes pausing calls, retrying selected failures, and modeling Lambda-based workflows as state machines.

## Source excerpt

Many of our data pipelines interact with external services. The availability of an external service can adversly affect the health our pipelines. This is how we handle it using AWS Step Functions