Prerequisites for Getting Started with Amazon Step Functions - Amazon Step Functions
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Prerequisites for Getting Started with Amazon Step Functions

Before you get started with Amazon Step Functions for the first time, complete the prerequisites that are listed on this page.

Step 1: Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account and an IAM user

To access any Amazon service, you must first create an Amazon Web Services account. You can use your Amazon Web Services account to view your activity and usage reports and to manage authentication and access. You're only charged for the products and services that you use, and you can get started with Amazon for free. For more information, see Amazon Free Tier.

To avoid using your Amazon Web Services account root user for Step Functions actions, it is a best practice to create an IAM user for each person who needs administrative access to Step Functions.

If you already have an Amazon account, skip to the next prerequisite.

Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account

If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

To sign up for Amazon Web Services
  1. Open http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choose Sign Up.

  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Amazon sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choosing My Account.

Secure IAM users

After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the IAM User Guide:

Step 2: Grant programmatic access

Users need programmatic access if they want to interact with Amazon outside of the Amazon Web Services Management Console. The Amazon APIs and the Amazon Command Line Interface require access keys. Whenever possible, create temporary credentials that consist of an access key ID, a secret access key, and a security token that indicates when the credentials expire.

To grant users programmatic access, choose one of the following options.

Which user needs programmatic access? To By
IAM Use short-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the Amazon CLI or Amazon APIs (directly or by using the Amazon SDKs). Following the instructions in Using temporary credentials with Amazon resources in the IAM User Guide.
IAM

(Not recommended)

Use long-term credentials to sign programmatic requests to the Amazon CLI or Amazon APIs (directly or by using the Amazon SDKs).
Following the instructions in Managing access keys for IAM users in the IAM User Guide.