Until now, the process of deploying machine learning models in production has been challenging. This is primarily because most of the production environments are more mature than data science.
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That’s why you need to adopt and understand the concepts of DevOps and continuous integration before you can deploy machine learning models in production. After all, it is one of the key factors that will determine whether your machine learning projects succeed or not.
As a result, this blog post will take you through everything from understanding the concept of DevOps to automating the build and deployment process in production with a tool called Kubernetes (which is Google’s managed open-source container scheduler).
What is DevOps?
DevOps is the process of enabling developers to operate their organizations’ DevOps practices. It is the process of enabling the people and processes that enable continuous delivery whether in the form of software updates or the creation of new features. DevOps is all about automating processes and enabling fast, risk-free and reliable software delivery.
DevOps is all about ensuring that the entire development process and its operations are seamlessly linked together. This includes the entire spectrum of people and tools involved in the development process. DevOps should be used to improve the efficiency of your development process and increase the quality of your products.
DevOps is the process of integrating development and operations to create a single flow that enables an organization to operate at peak performance. In other words, DevOps is the process of bringing together development and operations teams to create a single flow for delivering software services.
Build and Deployment with Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source software for managing clusters of containerized applications. Containers are virtualized environments that run on a cluster of servers. Kubernetes automates the tasks involved in the deployment and management of applications.
For example, one of the most common challenges in building and deploying machine learning models is handling the operationalizing of Docker. You may have heard of the issues that arise from mismanaged Docker environments. For example, you may have experienced low availability, or even Docker failures. These issues spoil the business operations and negatively affect the delivery of products.
What if you could automate the build and deployment process so that your models are automatically deployed in production? Now, with Kubernetes, you can. Kubernetes allows you to define steps in the build and deployment process that are executed when a new commit is pushed to the source code repository.
What are the benefits of automating the build and deployment process?
- Less manual errors in development – Automation reduces the likelihood of mistakes made by developers. In a manual workflow, each developer has to be very careful about the code they write. Even the tiniest code change can cause errors and affect other people’s code.
- Faster and more consistent product releases – Automation reduces the time between code commits and provides a consistent release cycle.
- Increased confidence in code – Automation provides confidence that code changes are reliable and won’t cause any bugs.
- Reduced risk of data loss – Automation detects problems that can lead to data loss and manages them.
- Reduced cost – Automation reduces the cost of manual tasks that are repeated in an extensive manner.
- Better collaboration – Automation reinforces the collaboration between developers.
Installing Dependencies for Machine Learning Model Using TensorFlow
In this section, we will look at how we can use the TensorFlow library to install dependencies for a machine learning model using Kubernetes.
The first step is to install the latest TensorFlow binary on your Kubernetes cluster. The second step is to create a model and prepare the training data. The last step is to create a deployment manifest that defines how the model is deployed on the Kubernetes cluster.
For example, you have a model that can classify emails into a specific bucket. You can use a custom tool to get the training data and then define a deployment manifest that defines how the model is deployed on the Kubernetes cluster.
Conclusion
Now that you know what DevOps and Kubernetes are, you can understand the concept of build and deployment with Kubernetes. With this knowledge, you can automate the build and deployment process with Kubernetes.
Moreover, you can use these tools to create automated build and deployment pipelines. This will help you to quickly and reliably build, test, and deploy machine learning models in production.
Machine learning is a vital technology in every company that wants to improve their business. You can use machine learning to predict customer behavior, optimize customer service, automate tasks, and much more.
Thus, it is important to understand the concept of DevOps and Kubernetes and use them to build, deploy, and manage machine learning models in production.
