New Release Professional-Machine-Learning-Engineer Machine Learning Engineer Questions

Quantization is a technique that reduces the numerical precision of the weights and activations of a neural network, which can improve the inference speed and reduce the memory footprint of the model1.

Reducing the floating point precision from tf.float64 to tf.float16 can potentially halve the latency and memory usage of the model, while having minimal impact on the accuracy2.

Increasing the dropout rate to 0.8 in either mode would not affect the latency, but would likely degrade the performance of the model significantly, as dropout is a regularization technique that randomly drops out units during training to prevent overfitting3.

Switching from CPU to GPU serving may or may not improve the latency, depending on the hardware specifications and the model complexity, but it would also incur additional costs and complexity for deployment4

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]

 Labels are key-value pairs that can be attached to any AI Platform resource, such as jobs, models, versions, or endpoints1. Labels can help you organize your resources into descriptive categories, such as project, team, environment, or purpose. You can use labels to filter the results when you list or monitor your resources, or to group them for billing or quota purposes2. Using labels is a simple and scalable way to manage your AI Platform resources without creating unnecessary complexity or overhead. Therefore, using labels to organize resources is the best strategy for this use case.

References:

Using labels

Filtering and grouping by labels

AI Platform Training is a service that allows you to run your machine learning training jobs on Google Cloud using various features, model architectures, and hyperparameters. You can use AI Platform Training to scale up your training jobs, leverage distributed training, and access specialized hardware such as GPUs and TPUs1. AI Platform Training supports several pre-built containers that provide different ML frameworks and dependencies, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, and XGBoost2. However, if the ML framework and related dependencies that you need are not supported by the pre-built containers, you can build your own custom containers and use them to run your training jobs on AI Platform Training3.

Custom containers are Docker images that you create to run your training application. By using custom containers, you can specify and pre-install all the dependencies needed for your application, and have full control over the code, serving, and deployment of your model4. Custom containers also enable you to run distributed training jobs on AI Platform Training, which can help you train large-scale and complex models faster and more efficiently5. Distributed training is a technique that splits the training data and computation across multiple machines, and coordinates them to update the model parameters. AI Platform Training supports two types of distributed training: parameter server and collective all-reduce. The parameter server architecture consists of a set of workers that perform the computation, and a set of servers that store and update the model parameters. The collective all-reduce architecture consists of a set of workers that perform the computation and synchronize the model parameters among themselves. Both architectures also have a scheduler that coordinates the workers and servers.

For the use case of training a custom neural network that uses critical dependencies specific to your organization’s framework, the best option is to build your custom containers to run distributed training jobs on AI Platform Training. This option allows you to use the ML framework and dependencies of your choice, and train your model on multiple machines without having to manage the infrastructure. Since your ML framework of choice uses the scheduler, workers, and servers distribution structure, you can use the parameter server architecture to run your distributed training job on AI Platform Training. You can specify the number and type of machines, the custom container image, and the training application arguments when you submit your training job. Therefore, building your custom containers to run distributed training jobs on AI Platform Training is the best option for this use case.

References:

AI Platform Training documentation

Pre-built containers for training

Custom containers for training

Custom containers overview | Vertex AI | Google Cloud

Distributed training overview

[Types of distributed training]

[Distributed training architectures]

[Using custom containers for training with the parameter server architecture]