Google Professional-Machine-Learning-Engineer Based on Real Exam Environment

• Option A is incorrect because implementing continuous retraining of the model daily using Vertex AI Pipelines is not the most efficient way to prevent prediction drift. Vertex AI Pipelines is a service that allows you to create and run scalable and portable ML pipelines on Google Cloud1. You can use Vertex AI Pipelines to retrain your model daily using the latest data from the BigQuery table. However, this option may be unnecessary or wasteful, as the data distribution may not change significantly every day, and retraining the model may consume a lot of resources and time. Moreover, this option does not monitor the model performance or detect the prediction drift, which are essential steps for ensuring the quality and reliability of the model.
• Option B is correct because adding a model monitoring job where 10% of incoming predictions are sampled 24 hours is the best way to prevent prediction drift. Model monitoring is a service that allows you to track the performance and health of your deployed models over time2. You can use model monitoring to sample a fraction of the incoming predictions and compare them with the ground truth labels, which can be obtained from the BigQuery table or other sources. You can also use model monitoring to compute various metrics, such as accuracy, precision, recall, or F1-score, and set thresholds or alerts for them. By using model monitoring, you can detect and diagnose the prediction drift, and decide when to retrain or update your model. Sampling 10% of the incoming predictions every 24 hours is a reasonable choice, as it balances the trade-off between the accuracy and the cost of the monitoring job.
• Option C is incorrect because adding a model monitoring job where 90% of incoming predictions are sampled 24 hours is not a optimal way to prevent prediction drift. This option has the same advantages as option B, as it uses model monitoring to track the performance and health of the deployed model. However, this option is not cost-effective, as it samples a very large fraction of the incoming predictions, which may incur a lot of storage and processing costs. Moreover, this option may not improve the accuracy of the monitoring job significantly, as sampling 10% of the incoming predictions may already provide a representative sample of the data distribution.
• Option D is incorrect because adding a model monitoring job where 10% of incoming predictions are sampled every hour is not a necessary way to prevent prediction drift. This option also has the same advantages as option B, as it uses model monitoring to track the performance and health of the deployed model. However, this option may be excessive, as it samples the incoming predictions too frequently, which may not reflect the actual changes in the data distribution. Moreover, this option may incur more storage and processing costs than option B, as it generates more samples and metrics.

References:

• Vertex AI Pipelines documentation
• Model monitoring documentation
• [Prediction drift]
• [TensorFlow Extended documentation]
• [BigQuery documentation]
• [Vertex AI documentation]

The best option for creating a scalable and maintainable production process that runs end-to-end and tracks the connections between steps, using prototype code to production, feature engineering code in PySpark that runs on Dataproc Serverless, and model training that is executed by using a Vertex AI custom training job, is to use the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to write code that specifies two components. The first is a Dataproc Serverless component that launches the feature engineering job. The second is a custom component wrapped in the create_custom_training_job_from_component utility that launches the custom model training job. This option allows you to leverage the power and simplicity of Kubeflow pipelines to orchestrate and automate your machine learning workflows on Vertex AI. Kubeflow pipelines is a platform that can build, deploy, and manage machine learning pipelines on Kubernetes. Kubeflow pipelines can help you create reusable and scalable pipelines, experiment with different pipeline versions and parameters, and monitor and debug your pipelines. Kubeflow pipelines SDK is a set of Python packages that can help you build and run Kubeflow pipelines. Kubeflow pipelines SDK can help you define pipeline components, specify pipeline parameters and inputs, and create pipeline steps and tasks. A component is a self-contained set of code that performs one step in a pipeline, such as data preprocessing, model training, or model evaluation. A component can be created from a Python function, a container image, or a prebuilt component. A custom component is a component that is not provided by Kubeflow pipelines, but is created by the user to perform a specific task. A custom component can be wrapped in a utility function that can help you create a Vertex AI custom training job from the component. A custom training job is a resource that can run your custom training code on Vertex AI. A custom training job can help you train various types of models, such as linear regression, logistic regression, k-means clustering, matrix factorization, and deep neural networks. By using the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to write code that specifies two components, the first is a Dataproc Serverless component that launches the feature engineering job, and the second is a custom component wrapped in the create_custom_training_job_from_component utility that launches the custom model training job, you can create a scalable and maintainable production process that runs end-to-end and tracks the connections between steps. You can write code that defines the two components, their inputs and outputs, and their dependencies. You can then use the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to create a pipeline that runs the two components in sequence, and submit the pipeline to Vertex AI Pipelines for execution. By using Dataproc Serverless component, you can run your PySpark feature engineering code on Dataproc Serverless, which is a service that can run Spark batch workloads without provisioning and managing your own cluster. By using custom component wrapped in the create_custom_training_job_from_component utility, you can run your custom model training code on Vertex AI, which is a unified platform for building and deploying machine learning solutions on Google Cloud1.

The other options are not as good as option C, for the following reasons:

• Option A: Creating a Vertex AI Workbench notebook, using the notebook to submit the Dataproc Serverless feature engineering job, using the same notebook to submit the custom model training job, and running the notebook cells sequentially to tie the steps together end-to-end would require more skills and steps than using the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to write code that specifies two components, the first is a Dataproc Serverless component that launches the feature engineering job, and the second is a custom component wrapped in the create_custom_training_job_from_component utility that launches the custom model training job. Vertex AI Workbench is a service that can provide managed notebooks for machine learning development and experimentation. Vertex AI Workbench can help you create and run JupyterLab notebooks, and access various tools and frameworks, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and JAX. By creating a Vertex AI Workbench notebook, using the notebook to submit the Dataproc Serverless feature engineering job, using the same notebook to submit the custom model training job, and running the notebook cells sequentially to tie the steps together end-to-end, you can create a production process that runs end-to-end and tracks the connections between steps. You can write code that submits the Dataproc Serverless feature engineering job and the custom model training job to Vertex AI, and run the code in the notebook cells. However, creating a Vertex AI Workbench notebook, using the notebook to submit the Dataproc Serverless feature engineering job, using the same notebook to submit the custom model training job, and running the notebook cells sequentially to tie the steps together end-to-end would require more skills and steps than using the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to write code that specifies two components, the first is a Dataproc Serverless component that launches the feature engineering job, and the second is a custom component wrapped in the create_custom_training_job_from_component utility that launches the custom model training job. You would need to write code, create and configure the Vertex AI Workbench notebook, submit the Dataproc Serverless feature engineering job and the custom model training job, and run the notebook cells. Moreover, this option would not use the Kubeflow pipelines SDK, which can simplify the pipeline creation and execution process, and provide various features, such as pipeline parameters, pipeline metrics, and pipeline visualization2.
• Option B: Creating a Vertex AI Workbench notebook, initiating an Apache Spark context in the notebook, and running the PySpark feature engineering code, using the same notebook to run the custom model training job in TensorFlow, and running the notebook cells sequentially to tie the steps together end-to-end would not allow you to use Dataproc Serverless to run the feature engineering job, and could increase the complexity and cost of the production process. Apache Spark is a framework that can perform large-scale data processing and machine learning. Apache Spark can help you run various tasks, such as data ingestion, data transformation, data analysis, and data visualization. PySpark is a Python API for Apache Spark. PySpark can help you write and run Spark code in Python. An Apache Spark context is a resource that can initialize and configure the Spark environment. An Apache Spark context can help you create and manage Spark objects, such as SparkSession, SparkConf, and SparkContext. By creating a Vertex AI Workbench notebook, initiating an Apache Spark context in the notebook, and running the PySpark feature engineering code, using the same notebook to run the custom model training job in TensorFlow, and running the notebook cells sequentially to tie the steps together end-to-end, you can create a production process that runs end-to-end and tracks the connections between steps. You can write code that initiates an Apache Spark context and runs the PySpark feature engineering code, and runs the custom model training job in TensorFlow, and run the code in the notebook cells. However, creating a Vertex AI Workbench notebook, initiating an Apache Spark context in the notebook, and running the PySpark feature engineering code, using the same notebook to run the custom model training job in TensorFlow, and running the notebook cells sequentially to tie the steps together end-to-end would not allow you to use Dataproc Serverless to run the feature engineering job, and could increase the complexity and cost of the production process. You would need to write code, create and configure the Vertex AI Workbench notebook, initiate and configure the Apache Spark context, run the PySpark feature engineering code, and run the custom model training job in TensorFlow. Moreover, this option would not use Dataproc Serverless, which is a service that can run Spark batch workloads without provisioning and managing your own cluster, and provide various benefits, such as autoscaling, dynamic resource allocation, and serverless billing2.
• Option D: Creating a Vertex AI Pipelines job to link and run both components, using the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to write code that specifies two components, the first component initiates an Apache Spark context that runs the PySpark feature engineering code, and the second component runs the TensorFlow custom model training code, would not allow you to use Dataproc Serverless to run the feature engineering job, and could increase the complexity and cost of the production process. Vertex AI Pipelines is a service that can run Kubeflow pipelines on Vertex AI. Vertex AI Pipelines can help you create and manage machine learning pipelines, and integrate with various Vertex AI services, such as Vertex AI Workbench, Vertex AI Training, and Vertex AI Prediction. A Vertex AI Pipelines job is a resource that can execute a pipeline on Vertex AI Pipelines. A Vertex AI Pipelines job can help you run your pipeline steps and tasks, and monitor and debug your pipeline execution. By creating a Vertex AI Pipelines job to link and run both components, using the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to write code that specifies two components, the first component initiates an Apache Spark context that runs the PySpark feature engineering code, and the second component runs the TensorFlow custom model training code, you can create a scalable and maintainable production process that runs end-to-end and tracks the connections between steps. You can write code that defines the two components, their inputs and outputs, and their dependencies. You can then use the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to create a pipeline that runs the two components in sequence, and submit the pipeline to Vertex AI Pipelines for execution. However, creating a Vertex AI Pipelines job to link and run both components, using the Kubeflow pipelines SDK to write code that specifies two components, the first component initiates an Apache Spark context that runs the PySpark feature engineering code,

An input pipeline is a way to prepare and feed data to a machine learning model for training or inference. An input pipeline typically consists of several steps, such as reading, parsing, transforming, batching, and prefetching the data. An input pipeline can improve the performance and efficiency of the model, as it can handle large and complex datasets, optimize the data processing, and reduce the latency and memory usage1.

For the use case of developing an input pipeline for an ML training model that processes images from disparate sources at a low latency, the best option is to convert the images into TFRecords, store the images in Cloud Storage, and then use the tf.data API to read the images for training. This option involves using the following components and techniques:

• TFRecords: TFRecords is a binary file format that can store a sequence of data records, such as images, text, or audio. TFRecords can help to compress, serialize, and store the data efficiently, and reduce the data loading and parsing time. TFRecords can also support data sharding and interleaving, which can improve the data throughput and parallelism2.
• Cloud Storage: Cloud Storage is a service that allows you to store and access data on Google Cloud. Cloud Storage can help to store and manage large and distributed datasets, such as images from different sources, and provide high availability, durability, and scalability. Cloud Storage can also integrate with other Google Cloud services, such as Compute Engine, AI Platform, and Dataflow3.
• tf.data API: tf.data API is a set of tools and methods that allow you to create and manipulate data pipelines in TensorFlow. tf.data API can help to read, transform, batch, and prefetch the data efficiently, and optimize the data processing for performance and memory. tf.data API can also support various data sources and formats, such as TFRecords, CSV, JSON, and images.

By using these components and techniques, the input pipeline can process large datasets of images from disparate sources that do not fit in memory, and provide low latency and high performance for the ML training model. Therefore, converting the images into TFRecords, storing the images in Cloud Storage, and using the tf.data API to read the images for training is the best option for this use case.

References:

• Build TensorFlow input pipelines | TensorFlow Core
• TFRecord and tf.Example | TensorFlow Core
• Cloud Storage documentation | Google Cloud
• [tf.data: Build TensorFlow input pipelines | TensorFlow Core]

This option is the best way to architect the workflow, as it allows you to use event-driven and serverless components to automate the ML training process. Cloud Storage triggers are a feature that allows you to send notifications to a Pub/Sub topic when an object is created, deleted, or updated in a storage bucket. Pub/Sub is a service that allows you to publish and subscribe to messages on various topics. Pub/Sub-triggered Cloud Functions are a type of Cloud Functions that are invoked when a message is published to a specific Pub/Sub topic. Cloud Functions are a serverless platform that allows you to run code in response to events. By using these components, you can create a workflow that starts the training job on a GKE cluster as soon as a new file is available in the Cloud Storage bucket, without having to manage any servers or poll for changes. The other options are not as efficient or scalable as this option. Dataflow is a service that allows you to create and run data processing pipelines, but it is not designed to trigger ML training jobs on GKE. App Engine is a service that allows you to build and deploy web applications, but it is not suitable for polling Cloud Storage for new files, as it may incur unnecessary costs and latency. Cloud Scheduler is a service that allows you to schedule jobs at regular intervals, but it is not ideal for triggering ML training jobs based on data availability, as it may miss some files or run unnecessary jobs. References:

• Cloud Storage triggers documentation
• Pub/Sub documentation
• Pub/Sub-triggered Cloud Functions documentation
• Cloud Functions documentation
• Kubeflow Pipelines documentation