Machine Learning is changing the world as we know it; thus, it is no surprise that it has even

been dubbed "new electricity." The potential of this technology is virtually limitless;
however, there is a major caveat holding it back. Statistics reveal that many ML and Data
solutions fail to reach the production environment.

How MLOps helps build better Machine Learning

Models
A report published by Ventura Beat states that 87% of the machine learning or data science
projects won't make it to production. To overcome this issue, we need to adapt the methods
associated with DevOps to build efficient and functional machine learning models and
pipelines.
DevOps combines Development and Operations practices and teams, and it's the standard
way to manage software development lifecycles. However, DevOps for software cycles raises
the question of why we can't use it to manage our ML process and resources for building
pipelines and models. For example, machine learning systems work with data, whereas a
written program runs standard software lifecycles. Since ML applications need data, it is
highly variable, as data collected in the real world varies due to user behavior. Therefore,
large stores of variable data cannot be managed by DevOps. So, to handle machine learning
components and create savvy models, we modify the DevOps lifecycle for the ML model to
create MLOps.

What is MLOps?
The MLOps consists of three primary practices: Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous
Development (CD), and Continuous Training. In addition, the setup for MLOps must include
the following operations:
 Experimentation: The core of creating a machine learning model. An ML engineer can
choose the one with the best outcome by testing different algorithms. Data scientists are also
required to test data at this point.
 Feature Store: Ensures consistent features are served in model training and inference
pipelines. ML practitioners can read, write features, and store the statistical summaries for
training datasets with a centralized storage layer, thus avoiding the training-serving skew.
 Continuous Training: Automatic monitoring and validation of the deployed model and
triggers training jobs based on requirement rather than manual intervention. Necessary to
test both data inputs and machine learning algorithms.
 Continuous Integration: This is integrating the cloud source repository with the code
developed for the machine learning pipelines.
 Continuous Delivery: New changes are continually delivered to the serving environment.
This eases the process of integrating into the existing application without hassles.
 Orchestration: An orchestration engine helps deploy and complete the ML pipeline.
Scaling resources and overall scheduling becomes much easier with the help of
orchestration.
Want to learn how Google Cloud Platform contributes to the future of CI/CD operations?
Download to read our e-guide.

How to set up GCP MLops Environment

Google Cloud facilitates end-to-end MLOps with its range of services and products. From
conducting exploratory data analysis to deploying machine learning models, there is a need
for processes to be in place that ensures practices such as CI/CD and Continuous Training are
carried out. In this blog, we aim to highlight the core services that help set up the MLOps
environment on Google Cloud Platform:
 Cloud Build: Cloud Build is one of the essential products that help foster CI/CD practices
on GCP. Integrating the Cloud Source repository with Cloud Build developers can test the
developed code, integrate it into the models, and bring changes to the ML pipelines when
the generated code is pushed into Google's Source Code repository.
 Container Registry: Stores and manages container images produced from the CI/CD
routine on Cloud Build.
 Vertex AI Workbench & BigQuery: With Vertex AI Workbench, you can create and
manage user-managed JupyterLab workbooks, in-built with R and Python libraries which
 helps in ML experimentation and development. BigQuery offers access to a serverless data
warehouse that can act as the source for ML models' training and evaluation datasets.
 Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE): With this service, developers can host KubeFlow
pipelines, which in turn help acts as an orchestrator for TensorFlow Extended workloads.
Tensorflow Extended help in facilitating continuous training with end-to-end ML pipelines.
 Vertex AI: When it comes to training and predicting ML models, Vertex AI provides end-
to-end services. Vertex AI even provides a Feature Store, an essential MLOps operation.
We even have a diagram below to demonstrate its capabilities for building an MLOps
environment.
 Cloud Storage: Google Cloud Storage is essential to the MLOps process as it helps store
the artifacts from each of the ML pipelines steps.
 Google Cloud Composer: We need to automate the complete Machine Learning pipeline
to scale and schedule as per requirement. With an Orchestration Engine like Google Cloud
Composer, this becomes very easy.
End- to-end MLOps on Vertex AI

Thus, several core services in Google Cloud Platform contribute to creating an MLOPs
environment; however, Vertex AI goes a long way towards achieving MLOps on GCP. With
Vertex AI, developers can access a highly advanced ML/AI platform on Google Cloud,
offering multiple in-built MLOps capabilities. In addition, it also has the advantage of being a
low-code ML platform, easing accessibility.