MLOps is the idea of combining the long-established practice of DevOps with the emerging field of Machine Learning. It is the creation of an automated environment for model development, model retraining, drift monitoring, automation of pipeline, quality control, and governance of a model into a single platform. By adopting MLOps, any organization working with AI can automate data pipelining, model development, packaging, versioning, and monitor model accuracy. It can ease the work of data scientists and ML operations teams, enabling them to focus on higher-value creation.
Most data scientists are not hard-core programmers. They can create the most effective model for a machine learning problem but they do not have the skills to package, test, deploy, or maintain this model in production. It takes someone with the knowledge of databases, REST APIs, and a collection of other IT skills to do that. This is where MLOps comes into the picture. MLOps goes beyond model development and design - it also brings together data management, automated model development, model retraining, code generation, continuous development, and monitoring of the model. By bringing DevOps principles to machine learning, it enables a faster development cycle, better quality control, and the ability to respond to changing business requirements.