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 APIcan 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]

The best option for dealing with the missing categorical variable in the test set is to apply one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the test data. This option has the following advantages:
* It ensures the consistency and compatibility of the data format for the ML model, as the one-hot encoding transforms the categorical variables into binary vectors that can be easily processed by the model. By applying one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the test data, you can match the number and order of the features in the test data with the training data, and avoid any errors or discrepancies in the model prediction.
* It preserves the information and relevance of the data for the ML model, as the one-hot encoding creates a separate feature for each possible value of the categorical variable, and assigns a value of 1 to the feature corresponding to the actual value of the variable, and 0 to the rest. By applying one-hot encoding on the categorical variables in the test data, you can retain the original meaning and importance of the categorical variable, and avoid any loss or distortion of the data.
The other options are less optimal for the following reasons:
* Option A: Randomly redistributing the data, with 70% for the training set and 30% for the test set, introduces additional complexity and risk. This option requires reshuffling and splitting the data again, which can be tedious and time-consuming. Moreover, this option may not guarantee that the missing categorical variable will be present in the test set, as it depends on the randomness of the data distribution. Furthermore, this option may affect the quality and validity of the ML model, as it may change the data characteristics and patterns that the model has learned from the original training set.
* Option B: Using sparse representation in the test set introduces additional overhead and inefficiency.
* This option requires converting the categorical variables in the test set into sparse vectors, which are vectors that have mostly zero values and only store the indices and values of the non-zero elements.
However, using sparse representation in the test set may not be compatible with the ML model, as the model expects the input data to have the same format and dimensionality as the training data, which uses one-hot encoding. Moreover, using sparse representation in the test set may not be efficient or scalable, as it requires additional computation and memory to store and process the sparse vectors.
* Option D: Collecting more data representing all categories introduces additional cost and delay. This option requires obtaining and labeling more data that contains the missing categorical variable, which can be expensive and time-consuming. Moreover, this option may not be feasible or necessary, as the missing categorical variable may not be available or relevant for the test data, depending on the data source or the business problem.

A data pipeline is a set of steps or processes that move data from one or more sources to one or more destinations, usually for the purpose of analysis, transformation, or storage. A data pipeline can be designed using various components, such as data sources, data processing tools, data storage systems, and data analytics tools1 To design a data pipeline for analyzing customer sentiments in each call, one should consider the following requirements and constraints:
* The call center receives over one million calls daily, and data is stored in Cloud Storage. This implies that the data is large, unstructured, and distributed, and requires a scalable and efficient data processing tool that can handle various types of data formats, such as audio, text, or image.
* The data collected must not leave the region in which the call originated, and no Personally Identifiable Information (Pll) can be stored or analyzed. This implies that the data is sensitive and subject to data privacy and compliance regulations, and requires a secure and reliable data storage system that can enforce data encryption, access control, and regional policies.
* The data science team has a third-party tool for visualization and access which requires a SQL ANSI-2011 compliant interface. This implies that the data analytics tool is external and independent of the data pipeline, and requires a standard and compatible data interface that can support SQL queries and operations.
One of the best options for selecting components for data processing and for analytics is to use Dataflow for data processing and BigQuery for analytics. Dataflow is a fully managed service for executing Apache Beam pipelines for data processing, such as batch or stream processing, extract-transform-load (ETL), or data integration. BigQuery is a serverless, scalable, and cost-effective data warehouse that allows you to run fast and complex queries on large-scale data23 Using Dataflow and BigQuery has several advantages for this use case:
* Dataflow can process large and unstructured data from Cloud Storage in a parallel and distributed manner, and apply various transformations, such as converting audio to text, extracting sentiment scores, or anonymizing PII. Dataflow can also handle both batch and stream processing, which can enable real-time or near-real-time analysis of the call data.
* BigQuery can store and analyze the processed data from Dataflow in a secure and reliable way, and enforce data encryption, access control, and regional policies. BigQuery can also support SQL ANSI-2011 compliant interface, which can enable the data science team to use their third-party tool for visualization and access. BigQuery can also integrate with various Google Cloud services and tools, such as AI Platform, Data Studio, or Looker.
* Dataflow and BigQuery can work seamlessly together, as they are both part of the Google Cloud ecosystem, and support various data formats, such as CSV, JSON, Avro, or Parquet. Dataflow and BigQuery can also leverage the benefits of Google Cloud infrastructure, such as scalability, performance, and cost-effectiveness.
The other options are not as suitable or feasible. Using Pub/Sub for data processing and Datastore for analytics is not ideal, as Pub/Sub is mainly designed for event-driven and asynchronous messaging, not data processing, and Datastore is mainly designed for low-latency and high-throughput key-value operations, not analytics.
Using Cloud Function for data processing and Cloud SQL for analytics is not optimal, as Cloud Function has limitations on the memory, CPU, and execution time, and does not support complex data processing, and Cloud SQL is a relational database service that may not scale well for large-scale data. Using Cloud Composer for data processing and Cloud SQL for analytics is not relevant, as Cloud Composer is mainly designed for orchestrating complex workflows across multiple systems, not data processing, and Cloud SQL is a relational database service that may not scale well for large-scale data.
References: 1: Data pipeline 2: Dataflow overview 3: BigQuery overview : [Dataflow documentation] :
[BigQuery documentation]

The best option for deploying a new version of a model to a production Vertex AI endpoint that is serving traffic, directing all user traffic to the new model, and deploying the model with minimal disruption to your application, is to create a new model, set the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model, upload the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploy the new model to the existing endpoint, and set the new model to 100% of the traffic. This option allows you to leverage the power and simplicity of Vertex AI to update your model version and serve online predictions with low latency. Vertex AI is a unified platform for building and deploying machine learning solutions on Google Cloud. Vertex AI can deploy a trained model to an online prediction endpoint, which can provide low-latency predictions for individual instances. A model is a resource that represents a machine learning model that you can use for prediction. A model can have one or more versions, which are different implementations of the same model. A model version can have different parameters, code, or data than another version of the same model. A model version can help you experiment and iterate on your model, and improve the model performance and accuracy. A parentModel parameter is a parameter that specifies the model ID of the model that the new model version is based on. A parentModel parameter can help you inherit the settings and metadata of the existing model, and avoid duplicating the model configuration. Vertex AI Model Registry is a service that can store and manage your machine learning models on Google Cloud. Vertex AI Model Registry can help you upload and organize your models, and track the model versions and metadata. An endpoint is a resource that provides the service endpoint (URL) you use to request the prediction. An endpoint can have one or more deployed models, which are instances of model versions that are associated with physical resources. A deployed model can help you serve online predictions with low latency, and scale up or down based on the traffic. By creating a new model, setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploying the new model to the existing endpoint, and setting the new model to 100% of the traffic, you can deploy a new version of a model to a production Vertex AI endpoint that is serving traffic, direct all user traffic to the new model, and deploy the model with minimal disruption to your application1.
The other options are not as good as option C, for the following reasons:
* Option A: Creating a new endpoint, creating a new model, setting it as the default version, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploying the new model to the new endpoint, and updating Cloud DNS to point to the new endpoint would require more skills and steps than creating a new model, setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploying the new model to the existing endpoint, and setting the new model to 100% of the traffic. Cloud DNS is a service that can provide reliable and scalable Domain Name System (DNS) services on Google Cloud. Cloud DNS can help you manage your DNS records, and resolve domain names to IP addresses. By updating Cloud DNS to point to the new endpoint, you can redirect the user traffic to the new endpoint, and avoid breaking the existing application. However, creating a new endpoint, creating a new model, setting it as the default version, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploying the new model to the new endpoint, and updating Cloud DNS to point to the new endpoint would require more skills and steps than creating a new model, setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploying the new model to the existing endpoint, and setting the new model to
100% of the traffic. You would need to write code, create and configure the new endpoint, create and configure the new model, upload the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploy the model to the new endpoint, and update Cloud DNS to point to the new endpoint. Moreover, this option would create a new endpoint, which can increase the maintenance and management costs2.
* Option B: Creating a new endpoint, creating a new model, setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model and setting it as the default version, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, and deploying the new model to the new endpoint and setting the new model to 100% of the traffic would require more skills and steps than creating a new model, setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model, uploading the model to Vertex
* AI Model Registry, deploying the new model to the existing endpoint, and setting the new model to
100% of the traffic. A parentModel parameter is a parameter that specifies the model ID of the model that the new model version is based on. A parentModel parameter can help you inherit the settings and metadata of the existing model, and avoid duplicating the model configuration. A default version is a model version that is used for prediction when no other version is specified. A default version can help you simplify the prediction request, and avoid specifying the model version every time. By setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model and setting it as the default version, you can create a new model that is based on the existing model, and use it for prediction without specifying the model version. However, creating a new endpoint, creating a new model, setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model and setting it as the default version, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, and deploying the new model to the new endpoint and setting the new model to 100% of the traffic would require more skills and steps than creating a new model, setting the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, deploying the new model to the existing endpoint, and setting the new model to 100% of the traffic. You would need to write code, create and configure the new endpoint, create and configure the new model, upload the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, and deploy the model to the new endpoint. Moreover, this option would create a new endpoint, which can increase the maintenance and management costs2.
* Option D: Creating a new model, setting it as the default version, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, and deploying the new model to the existing endpoint would not allow you to inherit the settings and metadata of the existing model, and could cause errors or poor performance. A default version is a model version that is used for prediction when no other version is specified. A default version can help you simplify the prediction request, and avoid specifying the model version every time.
By setting the new model as the default version, you can use the new model for prediction without specifying the model version. However, creating a new model, setting it as the default version, uploading the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, and deploying the new model to the existing endpoint would not allow you to inherit the settings and metadata of the existing model, and could cause errors or poor performance. You would need to write code, create and configure the new model, upload the model to Vertex AI Model Registry, and deploy the model to the existing endpoint. Moreover, this option would not set the parentModel parameter to the model ID of the currently deployed model, which could prevent you from inheriting the settings and metadata of the existing model, and cause inconsistencies or conflicts between the model versions2.
References:
* Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer, Course 3: Production ML Systems, Week 2: Serving ML Predictions
* Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer Exam Guide, Section 3: Scaling ML models in production, 3.1 Deploying ML models to production
* Official Google Cloud Certified Professional Machine Learning Engineer Study Guide, Chapter 6:
Production ML Systems, Section 6.2: Serving ML Predictions
* Vertex AI
* Cloud DNS

Cloud Build is a service that executes your builds on Google Cloud Platform infrastructure. Cloud Build can import source code from Cloud Source Repositories, Cloud Storage, GitHub, or Bitbucket, execute a build to your specifications, and produce artifacts such as Docker containers or Java archives1 Cloud Build allows you to set up automated triggers that start a build when changes are pushed to a source code repository. You can configure triggers to filter the changes based on the branch, tag, or file path2 To automate the execution of unit tests for a Kubeflow Pipeline that require custom libraries, you can use Cloud Build to set an automated trigger to execute the unit tests when changes are pushed to your development branch in Cloud Source Repositories. You can specify the steps of the build in a YAML or JSON file, such as installing the custom libraries, running the unit tests, and reporting the results. You can also use Cloud Build to build and deploy the Kubeflow Pipeline components if the unit tests pass3 The other options are not recommended or feasible. Writing a script that sequentially performs the push to your development branch and executes the unit tests on Cloud Run is not a good practice, as it does not leverage the benefits of Cloud Build and its integration with Cloud Source Repositories. Setting up a Cloud Logging sink to a Pub/Sub topic that captures interactions with Cloud Source Repositories and using a Pub/Sub trigger for Cloud Run or Cloud Function to execute the unit tests is unnecessarily complex and inefficient, as it adds extra steps and latency to the process. Cloud Run and Cloud Function are also not designed for executing unit tests, as they have limitations on the memory, CPU, and execution time45 References: 1: Cloud Build overview 2: Creating and managing build triggers 3: Building and deploying Kubeflow Pipelines using Cloud Build 4: Cloud Run documentation 5: Cloud Functions documentation

The best option for adding explanations to your model code with minimal effort and providing explanations that are as accurate as possible is to upload the custom model to Vertex AI Model Registry and configure feature-based attribution by using sampled Shapley with input baselines. This option allows you to leverage the power and simplicity of Vertex Explainable AI to generate feature attributions for each prediction, and understand how each feature contributes to the model output. Vertex Explainable AI is a service that can help you understand and interpret predictions made by your machine learning models, natively integrated with a number of Google’s products and services. Vertex Explainable AI can provide feature-based and example-based explanations to provide better understanding of model decision making. Feature-based explanations are explanations that show how much each feature in the input influenced the prediction.
Feature-based explanations can help you debug and improve model performance, build confidence in the predictions, and understand when and why things go wrong. Vertex Explainable AI supports various feature attribution methods, such as sampled Shapley, integrated gradients, and XRAI. Sampled Shapley is a feature attribution method that is based on the Shapley value, which is a concept from game theory that measures how much each player in a cooperative game contributes to the total payoff. Sampled Shapley approximates the Shapley value for each feature by sampling different subsets of features, and computing the marginal contribution of each feature to the prediction. Sampled Shapley can provide accurate and consistent feature attributions, but it can also be computationally expensive. To reduce the computation cost, you can use input baselines, which are reference inputs that are used to compare with the actual inputs. Input baselines can help you define the starting point or the default state of the features, and calculate the feature attributions relative to the input baselines. By uploading the custom model to Vertex AI Model Registry and configuring feature-based attribution by using sampled Shapley with input baselines, you can add explanations to your model code with minimal effort and provide explanations that are as accurate as possible1.
The other options are not as good as option C, for the following reasons:
* Option A: Creating an AutoML tabular model by using the BigQuery data with integrated Vertex Explainable AI would require more skills and steps than uploading the custom model to Vertex AI Model Registry and configuring feature-based attribution by using sampled Shapley with input baselines. AutoML tabular is a service that can automatically build and train machine learning models for structured or tabular data. AutoML tabular can use BigQuery as the data source, and provide feature-based explanations by using integratedgradients as the feature attribution method. However, creating an AutoML tabular model by using the BigQuery data with integrated Vertex Explainable AI would require more skills and steps than uploading the custom model to Vertex AI Model Registry and configuring feature-based attribution by using sampled Shapley with input baselines. You would need to create a new AutoML tabular model, import the BigQuery data, configure the model settings, train and evaluate the model, and deploy the model. Moreover, this option would not use your existing custom model, which is already performing well, but create a new model, which may not have the same performance or behavior as your custom model2.
* Option B: Creating a BigQuery ML deep neural network model, and using the ML.EXPLAIN_PREDICT method with the num_integral_steps parameter would not allow you to deploy the model to production, and could provide less accurate explanations than using sampled Shapley with input baselines. BigQuery ML is a service that can create and train machine learning models by using SQL queries on BigQuery. BigQuery ML can create a deep neural network model, which is a type of machine learning model that consists of multiple layers of neurons, and can learn complex patterns and relationships from the data. BigQuery ML can also provide feature-based explanations by using the ML.EXPLAIN_PREDICT method, which is a SQL function that returns the feature attributions for each prediction. The ML.EXPLAIN_PREDICT method uses integrated gradients as the feature attribution method, which is a method that calculates the average gradient of the prediction output with respect to the feature values along the path from the input baseline to the input. The num_integral_steps parameter is a parameter that determines the number of steps along the path from the input baseline to the input. However, creating a BigQuery ML deep neural network model, and using the ML.EXPLAIN_PREDICT method with the num_integral_steps parameter would not allow you to deploy the model to production, and could provide less accurate explanations than using sampled Shapley with input baselines. BigQuery ML does not support deploying the model to Vertex AI Endpoints, which is a service that can provide low-latency predictions for individual instances.
BigQuery ML only supports batch prediction, which is a service that can provide high-throughput predictions for a large batch of instances. Moreover, integrated gradients can provide less accurate and consistent explanations than sampled Shapley, as integrated gradients can be sensitive to the choice of the input baseline and the num_integral_steps parameter3.
* Option D: Updating the custom serving container to include sampled Shapley-based explanations in the prediction outputs would require more skills and steps than uploading the custom model to Vertex AI Model Registry and configuring feature-based attribution by using sampled Shapley with input baselines. A custom serving container is a container image that contains the model, the dependencies,
* and a web server. A custom serving container can help you customize the prediction behavior of your model, and handle complex or non-standard data formats. However, updating the custom serving container to include sampled Shapley-based explanations in the prediction outputs would require more skills and steps than uploading the custom model to Vertex AI Model Registry and configuring feature-based attribution by using sampled Shapley with input baselines. You would need to write code, implement the sampled Shapley algorithm, build and test the container image, and upload and deploy the container image. Moreover, this option would not leverage the power and simplicity of Vertex Explainable AI, which can provide feature-based explanations natively integrated with Vertex AI services4.
References:
* Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer, Course 3: Production ML Systems, Week 4: Evaluation
* Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer Exam Guide, Section 3: Scaling ML models in production, 3.3 Monitoring ML models in production
* Official Google Cloud Certified Professional Machine Learning Engineer Study Guide, Chapter 6:
Production ML Systems, Section 6.3: Monitoring ML Models
* Vertex Explainable AI
* AutoML Tables
* BigQuery ML
* Using custom containers for prediction

Image classification is a task where the model assigns a label to an image based on its content, such as “stop sign” or “speed limit”1. Object detection is a task where the model locates and identifies multiple objects in an image, and draws bounding boxes around them2. Since your dataset consists of images that were cropped to show one out of ten different traffic signs, you are dealing with an image classification problem, not an object detection problem. Therefore, you need to train a model for image classification, not object detection.
Vertex AI AutoML is a service that allows you to train and deploy high-quality ML models with minimal effort and machine learning expertise3. You can use Vertex AI AutoML to train a model for image classification by uploading your images and labels to a Vertex AI dataset, and then launching an AutoML training job4. However, Vertex AI AutoML does not allow you to tune the model during each training run, as it automatically selects the best model architecture and hyperparameters for your data4.
Vertex AI custom training is a service that allows you to train and deploy your own custom ML models using your own code and frameworks5. You can use Vertex AI custom training to train a model for image classification by writing your own model training code, such as using TensorFlow or PyTorch, and then creating and running a custom training job. Vertex AI custom training allows you to tune the model during each training run, as you can specify the model architecture and hyperparameters in your code, and use Vertex AI Hyperparameter Tuning to optimize them .
Therefore, the best option for your scenario is to develop the model training code for image classification and train a model by using Vertex AI custom training.
References:
* Image classification | TensorFlow Core
* Object detection | TensorFlow Core
* Introduction to Vertex AI AutoML | Google Cloud
* AutoML Vision | Google Cloud
* Introduction to Vertex AI custom training | Google Cloud
* [Custom training with TensorFlow | Vertex AI | Google Cloud]
* [Hyperparameter tuning overview | Vertex AI | Google Cloud]

“algorithm to learn from new inventory data on a daily basis” = time series model , best option to deal with time series is forsure RNN
https://builtin.com/data-science/recurrent-neural-networks-and-lstm

Explanation