MLOps: Your Path to Fully Embracing AI

April 16, 2020
by
· 2 min read

According to a recent survey by NewVantage Partners, only 15% of leading enterprises have deployed AI into widespread production. Why so few? For organizations to overcome the hurdles of deploying and managing AI, they have to overcome several major hurdles around model deployment, management, and monitoring, in addition to bridging the gap between IT and data science teams. These are challenging issues for most organizations to overcome, but machine learning operations, or MLOps, can help. Given the turbulent times that we are living in, this issue is becoming especially important, as many of the existing models become outdated or irrelevant.

Our recent white paper, How MLOps Can Help You Realize Your AI Dreams, takes a close look at these issues and how MLOps can help provide a scalable and governed means to deploy and manage machine learning models in production environments.

The Divide 

Data scientists are hard to come by, and when companies do hire them, it is highly likely that they will continue to produce models using their preferred programming language and framework. Unfortunately, the production environment at the front-end of the house is highly unlikely to support these tools and languages. This incompatibility creates a barrier that might be impossible to overcome.

When data scientists are ready to deploy the model, it’s not unusual for them to throw the model ‘over the wall’ to the IT department who might not even know what the model is and what it’s meant to do. In many cases, they might decide the model needs rewriting in a language  that they are familiar with, instead of Python or R that is preferred by data scientists. The problem with this approach is that machine learning models are not just software, and they are highly dependent on the training data, the algorithm, and training parameters. Eventually, models become obsolete without the retraining necessary to keep them running smoothly.

The situation might get worse when data scientists are put in charge of the production process. Because of their lack of production coding, IT Ops, and governance experience, they often end up ‘babysitting’ their production models to ensure that they stay stable and operational.

Data scientists are not experts on production coding practices, production environments, security, or governance. While they might get a production model up and running as a service once, that model is virtually guaranteed to be brittle and to fail as soon as conditions and data change in production. And they will change.

Read the full white paper to find out more about the cornerstones of MLOps:

  • Production model deployment
  • Production model monitoring
  • Model lifecycle management
  • Production model governance

Download ML Ops eBook

About the author
DataRobot

Value-Driven AI

DataRobot is the leader in Value-Driven AI – a unique and collaborative approach to AI that combines our open AI platform, deep AI expertise and broad use-case implementation to improve how customers run, grow and optimize their business. The DataRobot AI Platform is the only complete AI lifecycle platform that interoperates with your existing investments in data, applications and business processes, and can be deployed on-prem or in any cloud environment. DataRobot and our partners have a decade of world-class AI expertise collaborating with AI teams (data scientists, business and IT), removing common blockers and developing best practices to successfully navigate projects that result in faster time to value, increased revenue and reduced costs. DataRobot customers include 40% of the Fortune 50, 8 of top 10 US banks, 7 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies, 7 of the top 10 telcos, 5 of top 10 global manufacturers.

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