There's a lot you can achieve by working with SAM as well as with Step Functions when it comes to building and deploying Lambda applications. But besides these services, you can still use other AWS services such as AWS Code Build and AWS Code Deploy. Code Build can be leveraged to build, locally test, and package your serverless application, whereas Code Deploy can be used to automate the steps for your application's release management. You can find detailed implementation steps for the same using this link: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lambda/latest/dg/automating-deployment.html
The second AWS service worth trying out is Amazon Simple Workflow Service or SWF. Although step functions are a small part of SWF's overall functionality, it greatly enhances the overall experience of orchestrating and running distributed serverless apps when compared...