Modern backend architectures often consist of many microservices and serverless functions working together. In such distributed systems, orchestrating complex processes reliably can be challenging. This is where state machines come into play. A state machine models a process as a series of defined states and transitions, enabling predictable sequences, loops, branching, and error handling in workflows. In practice, state machines let us implement robust workflows – essentially the flowcharts of business logic – with clear steps and outcomes. They are crucial for backend systems that require scalable, resilient coordination of tasks across services.
On Google Cloud Platform (GCP), developers have managed services to build these workflows without managing servers. GCP’s Workflows service is a fully managed orchestration engine that executes steps (states) in order, calling various services and APIs. This is analogous to AWS Step Functions – Workflows follows a similar state machine model to connect services in a durable, stateful execution. Combined with event-driven services like Eventarc, messaging like Pub/Sub, and compute platforms like Cloud Functions and Cloud Run, GCP provides powerful tools to implement state machine patterns. The result is scalable and fault-tolerant workflows for tasks such as order processing, data pipelines, and long-running processes with human or external triggers.