Learn More About Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms
What are the common features of data science and machine learning solutions?
The following are some core features within data science and machine learning platforms that can help users prepare data and train, manage, and deploy models.
Data preparation: Data ingestion features allow users to integrate and ingest data from various internal or external sources, such as enterprise applications, databases, or Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Dirty data (i.e., incomplete, inaccurate, or incoherent data) is a nonstarter for building machine learning models. Bad AI training begets bad models, which in turn begets bad predictions that may be useful at best and detrimental at worst. Therefore, data preparation capabilities allow for data cleansing and data augmentation (in which related datasets are brought to bear on company data) to ensure that the data journey gets off to a good start.
Model training: Feature engineering transforms raw data into features that better represent the underlying problem to the predictive models. It is a key step in building a model and improves model accuracy on unseen data.
Building a model requires training it by feeding it data. Training a model is the process of determining the proper values for all the weights and the bias from the inputted data. Two key methods used for this purpose are supervised learning and unsupervised learning. The former is a method in which the input is labeled, whereas the latter deals with unlabeled data.
Model management: The process does not end once the model is released. Businesses must monitor and manage their models to ensure that they remain accurate and updated. Model comparison allows users to quickly compare models to a baseline or to a previous result to determine the quality of the model built. Many of these platforms also have tools for tracking metrics, such as accuracy and loss.
Model deployment: The deployment of machine learning models is the process of making them available in production environments, where they provide predictions to other software systems. Methods of deployment include REST APIs, GUI for on-demand analysis, and more.
Who uses data science and machine learning products?
Data scientists are in high demand, but skilled professionals are in shortage. The skillset is varied and vast (for example, there is a need to understand various algorithms, advanced mathematics, programming skills, and more). Therefore, such professionals are difficult to come by and command high compensation. To tackle this issue, platforms increasingly include features that make it easier to develop AI solutions, such as drag-and-drop capabilities and prebuilt algorithms.
In addition, for data science projects to initiate, it is key that the broader business buys into them. The more robust platforms provide resources that help nontechnical users understand the models, the data involved, and the aspects of the business that have been impacted.
Data engineers: With robust data integration capabilities, data engineers tasked with the design, integration, and management of data use these platforms to collaborate with data scientists and other stakeholders within the organization.
Citizen data scientists: With the rise of more user-friendly features, citizen data scientists, who are not professionally trained but have developed data skills, are increasingly turning to data science and machine learning platforms to bring AI into their organizations.
Professional data scientists: Expert data scientists use these solutions to scale data science operations across the lifecycle, simplifying the process of experimentation to deployment and speeding up data exploration and preparation, as well as model development and training.
Business stakeholders: Business stakeholders use these tools to gain clarity into the machine learning models and better understand how they tie in with the broader business and its operations.
How to choose the best data science and machine learning (DSML) platform
Requirements gathering (RFI/RFP) for DSML platforms
If a company is just starting out and looking to purchase its first data science and machine learning platform, or wherever a business is in its buying process, g2.com can help select the best option.
The first step in the buying process must involve a careful look at one’s company data. As a fundamental part of the data science journey involves data engineering (i.e., data collection and analysis), businesses must ensure that their data quality is high and the platform in question can adequately handle their data, both in terms of format as well as volume. If the company has amassed a lot of data, it needs to look for a solution that can grow with the organization. Users should think about the pain points and jot them down; these should be used to help create a checklist of criteria. Additionally, the buyer must determine the number of employees who will need to use this software, as this drives the number of licenses they are likely to buy.
Taking a holistic overview of the business and identifying pain points can help the team springboard into creating a checklist of criteria. The checklist serves as a detailed guide that includes both necessary and nice-to-have features, including budget, features, number of users, integrations, security requirements, cloud or on-premises solutions, and more.
Depending on the deployment scope, producing an RFI, a one-page list with a few bullet points describing what is needed from a data science platform might be helpful.
Compare DSML products
Create a long list
From meeting the business functionality needs to implementation, vendor evaluations are an essential part of the software buying process. For ease of comparison, after all demos are complete, it helps to prepare a consistent list of questions regarding specific needs and concerns to ask each vendor.
Create a short list
From the long list of vendors, it is helpful to narrow down the list of vendors and come up with a shorter list of contenders, preferably no more than three to five. With this list in hand, businesses can produce a matrix to compare the features and pricing of the various solutions.
Conduct demos
To ensure a thorough comparison, the user should demo each solution on the short list using the same use case and datasets. This will allow the business to evaluate like-for-like and see how each vendor compares against the competition.
Selection of DSML platforms
Choose a selection team
Before getting started, it's crucial to create a winning team that will work together throughout the entire process, from identifying pain points to implementation. The software selection team should consist of members of the organization who have the right interests, skills, and time to participate in this process. A good starting point is to aim for three to five people who fill roles such as the main decision maker, project manager, process owner, system owner, or staffing subject matter expert, as well as a technical lead, IT administrator, or security administrator. In smaller companies, the vendor selection team may be smaller, with fewer participants, multitasking, and taking on more responsibilities.
Negotiation
Just because something is written on a company’s pricing page does not mean it is fixed (although some companies will not budge). It is imperative to open up a conversation regarding pricing and licensing. For example, the vendor may be willing to give a discount for multi-year contracts or to recommend the product to others.
Final decision
After this stage, and before going all in, it is recommended to roll out a test run or pilot program to test adoption with a small sample size of users. If the tool is well used and well received, the buyer can be confident that the selection was correct. If not, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
Implementation of data science and machine learning platforms
How are DSML software tools implemented?
Implementation differs drastically depending on the complexity and scale of the data. In organizations with vast amounts of data in disparate sources (e.g., applications, databases, etc.), it is often wise to utilize an external party, whether that be an implementation specialist from the vendor or a third-party consultancy. With vast experience under their belts, they can help businesses understand how to connect and consolidate their data sources and how to use the software efficiently and effectively.
Who is responsible for DSML platform implementation?
It may require many people or teams to properly deploy a data science platform, including data engineers, data scientists, and software engineers. This is because, as mentioned, data can cut across teams and functions. As a result, one person or even one team rarely has a full understanding of all of a company’s data assets. With a cross-functional team in place, a business can begin to piece together its data and begin the journey of data science, starting with proper data preparation and management.
What is the implementation process for data science and machine learning products?
In terms of implementation, it is typical for the platform to be deployed in a limited fashion and subsequently rolled out in a broader fashion. For example, a retail brand might decide to A/B test its use of a personalization algorithm for a limited number of visitors to its site to understand better how it is performing. If the deployment is successful, the data science team can present their findings to their leadership team (which might be the CTO, depending on the structure of the business).
If the deployment is unsuccessful, the team can return to the drawing board to determine what went wrong. This will involve examining the training data and algorithms used. If they try again, yet nothing seems to be successful (i.e., the outcome is faulty or there is no improvement in predictions), the business might need to go back to basics and review their data.
When should you implement DSML tools?
As previously mentioned, data engineering, which involves preparing and gathering data, is a fundamental feature of data science projects. Therefore, businesses must make getting their data in order their top priority, ensuring that there are no duplicate records or misaligned fields. Although this sounds basic, it is anything but. Faulty data as an input will result in faulty data as an output.
Data science and machine learning platforms trends
AutoML
AutoML helps automate many tasks needed to develop AI and machine learning applications. Uses include automatic data preparation, automated feature engineering, providing explainability for models, and more.
Embedded AI
Machine and deep learning functionality is getting increasingly embedded in nearly all types of software, irrespective of whether the user is aware of it. Using embedded AI inside software like CRM, marketing automation, and analytics solutions allows us to streamline processes, automate certain tasks, and gain a competitive edge with predictive capabilities. Embedded AI may gradually pick up in the coming years and may do so in the same way cloud deployment and mobile capabilities have over the past decade. Eventually, vendors may not need to highlight their product benefits from machine learning as it may just be assumed and expected.
Machine learning as a service (MLaaS)
The software environment has moved to a more granular microservices structure, particularly for development operations needs. Additionally, the boom of public cloud infrastructure services has allowed large companies to offer development and infrastructure services to other businesses with a pay-as-you-use model. AI software is no different, as the same companies provide MLaaS for other enterprises.
Developers quickly take advantage of these prebuilt algorithms and solutions by feeding them their data to gain insights. Using systems built by enterprise companies helps small businesses save time, resources, and money by eliminating the need to hire skilled machine learning developers. MLaaS will grow further as companies continue to rely on these microservices and the need for AI increases.
Explainability
When it comes to machine learning algorithms, especially deep learning, it may be difficult to explain how they arrived at certain conclusions. Explainable AI, also known as XAI, is the process whereby the decision-making process of algorithms is made transparent and understandable to humans. Transparency is the most prevalent principle in the current AI ethics literature, and hence explainability, a subset of transparency, becomes crucial. Data science and machine learning platforms are increasingly including tools for explainability, which helps users build explainability into their models and help them meet data explainability requirements in legislation such as the European Union's privacy law and the GDPR.
