# How Temporal handles work ranging from fast responses to long-running workflows

DevFeed: [How Temporal handles work ranging from fast responses to long-running workflows](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/what-does-long-running-really-mean-35910.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://temporal.io/blog/long-running>)

Author: Shawn Wang

Published: 2021-08-13T07:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Temporal Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/temporal-blog.md>)

Topics: [Orchestration](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/orchestration.md>), [Latency](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/latency.md>), [reliability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/reliability.md>), [Monitoring](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/monitoring.md>), [Microservice](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/microservice.md>), [AWS Lambda](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws-lambda.md>), [HTTP](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/http.md>)

Tags: [aws-lambda](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/aws-lambda.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [latency](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/latency.md>), [long-running](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/long-running.md>), [monitoring](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/monitoring.md>), [orchestration](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/orchestration.md>), [queues](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/queues.md>), [reliability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/reliability.md>), [temporal-concepts](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/temporal-concepts.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains that "long running" work is not defined by a fixed duration. Temporal can orchestrate workflows ranging from near-instant file operations to multi-stage background processes, while using long polling to provide fast responses. It also discusses reliability, microservice orchestration, and monitoring ScheduleToStart latency in production.

## Source excerpt

Most developers know what "long running" work means. Take another look at additional perspectives and see how that definition may need to be revisited.