Professional-Machine-Learning-Engineer Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Questions and Answers

 According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “track the lineage of pipeline artifacts”. Vertex ML Metadata2 is a service that allows you to store, query, and visualize metadata associated with your ML workflows, such as datasets, models, metrics, and executions. Vertex ML Metadata helps you track the provenance and lineage of your ML artifacts and understand the relationships between them. Vertex AI Experiments3 is a service that allows you to track and compare the results of your model training runs. Vertex AI Experiments automatically logs metadata such as hyperparameters, metrics, and artifacts for each training run. You can use Vertex AI Experiments to train your custom model using TensorFlow, PyTorch, XGBoost, or scikit-learn. Vertex AI TensorBoard4 is a service that allows you to visualize and monitor your ML experiments using TensorBoard, an open source tool for ML visualization. Vertex AI TensorBoard helps you track the model’s training parameters and the metrics per training epoch, and compare the performance of each version of the model. Therefore, option C is the best way to determine which Vertex AI services to include in the workflow for the given use case. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Vertex ML Metadata
• Vertex AI Experiments
• Vertex AI TensorBoard
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

 The input/output execution performance of a TensorFlow model depends on how efficiently the model can read and process the data from the data source. Reading and processing data from CSV files can be slow and inefficient, especially if the data is large and distributed. Therefore, to improve the input/output execution performance, one should use a more suitable data format and storage system.

One of the best options for improving the input/output execution performance is to convert the CSV files into shards of TFRecords, and store the data in Cloud Storage. TFRecord is a binary data format that can store a sequence of serialized TensorFlow examples. TFRecord has several advantages over CSV, such as:

• Faster data loading: TFRecord can be read and processed faster than CSV, as it avoids the overhead of parsing and decoding the text data. TFRecord also supports compression and checksums, which can reduce the data size and ensure data integrity1
• Better performance: TFRecord can improve the performance of the model, as it allows the model to access the data in a sequential and streaming manner, and leverage the tf.data API to build efficient data pipelines. TFRecord also supports sharding and interleaving, which can increase the parallelism and throughput of the data processing2
• Easier integration: TFRecord can integrate seamlessly with TensorFlow, as it is the native data format for TensorFlow. TFRecord also supports various types of data, such as images, text, audio, and video, and can store the data schema and metadata along with the data3

Cloud Storage is a scalable and reliable object storage service that can store any amount of data. Cloud Storage has several advantages over other storage systems, such as:

• High availability: Cloud Storage can provide high availability and durability for the data, as it replicates the data across multiple regions and zones, and supports versioning and lifecycle management. Cloud Storage also offers various storage classes, such as Standard, Nearline, Coldline, and Archive, to meet different performance and cost requirements4
• Low latency: Cloud Storage can provide low latency and high bandwidth for the data, as it supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols, and integrates with other Google Cloud services, such as AI Platform, Dataflow, and BigQuery. Cloud Storage also supports resumable uploads and downloads, and parallel composite uploads, which can improve the data transfer speed and reliability5
• Easy access: Cloud Storage can provide easy access and management for the data, as it supports various tools and libraries, such as gsutil, Cloud Console, and Cloud Storage Client Libraries. Cloud Storage also supports fine-grained access control and encryption, which can ensure the data security and privacy.

The other options are not as effective or feasible. Loading the data into BigQuery and reading the data from BigQuery is not recommended, as BigQuery is mainly designed for analytical queries on large-scale data, and does not support streaming or real-time data processing. Loading the data into Cloud Bigtable and reading the data from Bigtable is not ideal, as Cloud Bigtable is mainly designed for low-latency and high-throughput key-value operations on sparse and wide tables, and does not support complex data types or schemas. Converting the CSV files into shards of TFRecords and storing the data in the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is not optimal, as HDFS is not natively supported by TensorFlow, and requires additional configuration and dependencies, such as Hadoop, Spark, or Beam.

References: 1: TFRecord and tf.Example 2: Better performance with the tf.data API 3: TensorFlow Data Validation 4: Cloud Storage overview 5: Performance : [How-to guides]

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.

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 integrated gradients 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

 Online inference is a process where you send a single or a small number of prediction requests to a model and get immediate responses1. Online inference is suitable for scenarios where you need timely predictions, such as detecting cheating in online games. Online inference requires that the model is deployed to an endpoint, which is a resource that provides a service URL for prediction requests2.

Vertex AI Model Registry is a central repository where you can manage the lifecycle of your ML models3. You can import models from various sources, such as custom models or AutoML models, and assign them to different versions and aliases3. You can also deploy models to endpoints, which are resources that provide a service URL for online prediction2.

By importing the model into Vertex AI Model Registry, you can leverage the Vertex AI features to monitor and update the model3. You can use Vertex AI Experiments to track and compare the metrics of different model versions, such as accuracy, precision, recall, and AUC. You can also use Vertex AI Explainable AI to generate feature attributions that show how much each input feature contributed to the model’s prediction.

By creating a Vertex AI endpoint that hosts the model, you can use the Vertex AI Prediction service to serve online inference requests2. Vertex AI Prediction provides various benefits, such as scalability, reliability, security, and logging2. You can use the Vertex AI API or the Google Cloud console to send online inference requests to the endpoint and get immediate classifications4.

Therefore, the best option for your scenario is to import the model into Vertex AI Model Registry, create a Vertex AI endpoint that hosts the model, and make online inference requests.

The other options are not suitable for your scenario, because they either do not provide immediate classifications, such as using batch prediction or loading the model files each time, or they do not use Vertex AI Prediction, which would require more development and maintenance effort, such as creating a Cloud Function or a VM.

References:

• Online versus batch prediction | Vertex AI | Google Cloud
• Deploy a model to an endpoint | Vertex AI | Google Cloud
• Introduction to Vertex AI Model Registry | Google Cloud
• Get online predictions | Vertex AI | Google Cloud

In this scenario, the goal is to create a custom fraud detection model using AutoML Tables. Fraud detection is a type of binary classification problem, where the model needs to predict whether a transaction is fraudulent or not. The optimization objective is a metric that defines how the model is trained and evaluated. AutoML Tables allows you to choose from different optimization objectives for binary classification problems, such as Log loss, Precision at a Recall value, AUC PR, and AUC ROC.

To choose the best optimization objective for fraud detection, we need to consider the characteristics of the problem and the data. Fraud detection is a problem where the positive class (fraudulent transactions) is very rare compared to the negative class (legitimate transactions). This means that the data is highly imbalanced, and the model needs to be sensitive to the minority class. Moreover, fraud detection is a problem where the cost of false negatives (missing a fraudulent transaction) is much higher than the cost of false positives (flagging a legitimate transaction as fraudulent). This means that the model needs to have high recall (the ability to detect all fraudulent transactions) while maintaining high precision (the ability to avoid false alarms).

Given these considerations, the best optimization objective for fraud detection is the one that maximizes the area under the precision-recall curve (AUC PR) value. The AUC PR value is a metric that measures the trade-off between precision and recall for different probability thresholds. A higher AUC PR value means that the model can achieve high precision and high recall at the same time. The AUC PR value is also more suitable for imbalanced data than the AUC ROC value, which measures the trade-off between the true positive rate and the false positive rate. The AUC ROC value can be misleading for imbalanced data, as it can give a high score even if the model has low recall or low precision.

Therefore, option C is the correct answer. Option A is not suitable, as Log loss is a metric that measures the difference between the predicted probabilities and the actual labels, and does not account for the trade-off between precision and recall. Option B is not suitable, as Precision at a Recall value is a metric that measures the precision at a fixed recall level, and does not account for the trade-off between precision and recall at different thresholds. Option D is not suitable, as AUC ROC is a metric that can be misleading for imbalanced data, as explained above.

References:

• AutoML Tables documentation
• Optimization objectives for binary classification
• Precision-Recall Curves: How to Easily Evaluate Machine Learning Models in No Time
• ROC Curves and Area Under the Curve Explained (video)

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “design, build, and productionalize ML models to solve business challenges using Google Cloud technologies”. TensorFlow Transform2 is a library for preprocessing data with TensorFlow. TensorFlow Transform enables you to define and execute distributed pre-processing or feature engineering functions on large data sets, and then export the same functions as a TensorFlow graph for re-use during training or serving. TensorFlow Transform can handle both instance-level and full-pass data transformations. Apache Beam3 is an open source framework for building scalable and portable data pipelines. Apache Beam supports both batch and streaming data processing. Dataflow4 is a fully managed service for running Apache Beam pipelines on Google Cloud. Dataflow handles the provisioning and management of the compute resources, as well as the optimization and execution of the pipelines. Therefore, option D is the best way to configure the preprocessing routine for the given use case, as it allows you to use the same preprocessing logic during model training and serving, and leverage the scalability and performance of Dataflow. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• TensorFlow Transform
• Apache Beam
• Dataflow
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

• Option A is incorrect because it does not separate the training dataset into two tables based on the features, which is necessary to train the two models separately and accurately.
• Option B is incorrect because it does not separate the training dataset into two tables based on the features, and because it uses the same monitoring-config-from parameter for both models, which would not account for the different feature selections.
• Option C is incorrect because it deploys the models to two separate endpoints, which would increase the management effort and complexity of the pipeline.
• Option D is correct because it separates the training dataset into two tables based on the features, which would enable the two models to be trained separately and accurately. It also deploys both models to the same endpoint, which would simplify the pipeline and reduce the management effort. It also submits a Vertex Al Model Monitoring job with a monitoring-config-from parameter that accounts for the model IDs and training datasets, which would enable the skew detection to work properly for each model.

 The end-to-end architecture of the predictive model for estimating delay times for multiple transportation routes should be configured using Kubeflow Pipelines. Kubeflow Pipelines is a platform for building and deploying scalable, portable, and reusable machine learning pipelines on Kubernetes. Kubeflow Pipelines allows you to orchestrate your multi-step workflow from data preparation, model training, model evaluation, model deployment, and model serving. Kubeflow Pipelines also provides a user interface for managing and tracking your pipeline runs, experiments, and artifacts1

Using Kubeflow Pipelines has several advantages for this use case:

• Full automation: You can define your pipeline as a Python script that specifies the steps and dependencies of your workflow, and use the Kubeflow Pipelines SDK to compile and upload your pipeline to the Kubeflow Pipelines service. You can also use the Kubeflow Pipelines UI to create, run, and monitor your pipeline2
• Scalability: You can leverage the power of Kubernetes to scale your pipeline components horizontally and vertically, and use distributed training frameworks such as TensorFlow or PyTorch to train your model on multiple nodes or GPUs3
• Portability: You can package your pipeline components as Docker containers that can run on any Kubernetes cluster, and use the Kubeflow Pipelines SDK to export and import your pipeline packages across different environments4
• Reusability: You can reuse your pipeline components across different pipelines, and share your components with other users through the Kubeflow Pipelines Component Store. You can also use pre-built components from the Kubeflow Pipelines library or other sources5
• Schedulability: You can use the Kubeflow Pipelines UI or the Kubeflow Pipelines SDK to schedule recurring pipeline runs based on cron expressions or intervals. For example, you can schedule your pipeline to run every month to retrain your model on the latest data.

The other options are not as suitable for this use case. Using a model trained and deployed on BigQuery ML is not recommended, as BigQuery ML is mainly designed for simple and quick machine learning tasks on large-scale data, and does not support complex models or custom code. Writing a Cloud Functions script that launches a training and deploying job on AI Platform is not ideal, as Cloud Functions has limitations on the memory, CPU, and execution time, and does not provide a user interface for managing and tracking your pipeline. Using Cloud Composer to programmatically schedule a Dataflow job that executes the workflow from training to deploying your model is not optimal, as Dataflow is mainly designed for data processing and streaming analytics, and does not support model serving or monitoring.

References: 1: Kubeflow Pipelines overview 2: Build a pipeline 3: Scale your machine learning training and prediction workloads 4: Export and import pipelines 5: Build components and pipelines : [Schedule recurring pipeline runs] : [BigQuery ML overview] : [Cloud Functions documentation] : [Dataflow 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

 Vertex AI Experiments is a service that allows you to track, compare, and optimize your ML experiments on Google Cloud. You can use Vertex AI Experiments to log metrics and parameters from your TensorFlow models, and then visualize them in Vertex AI TensorBoard. Vertex AI TensorBoard is a managed service that provides a web interface for viewing and debugging your ML experiments. You can use Vertex AI TensorBoard to compare different runs, inspect model graphs, analyze scalars, histograms, images, and more. By using Vertex AI Experiments and Vertex AI TensorBoard, you can simplify your ML experiment tracking and visualization workflow, and avoid the overhead of setting up and maintaining your own Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage buckets, or VMs. References:

• [Vertex AI Experiments documentation]
• [Vertex AI TensorBoard documentation]
• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate

The best option to minimize storage and computational overhead is to use the TRANSFORM clause in the CREATE MODEL statement in the SQL query to calculate the required statistics. The TRANSFORM clause allows you to specify feature preprocessing logic that applies to both training and prediction. The preprocessing logic is executed in the same query as the model creation, which avoids the need to create and store intermediate tables. The TRANSFORM clause also supports quantile bucketization and MinMax scaling, which are the preprocessing steps required for this scenario. Option A is incorrect because creating a component in the Vertex AI Pipelines DAG to calculate the required statistics may increase the computational overhead, as the component needs to run separately from the model creation. Moreover, the component needs to pass the statistics to subsequent components, which may increase the storage overhead. Option B is incorrect because preprocessing and staging the data in BigQuery prior to feeding it to the model may also increase the storage and computational overhead, as you need to create and maintain additional tables for the preprocessed data. Moreover, you need to ensure that the preprocessing logic is consistent for both training and inference. Option C is incorrect because creating SQL queries to calculate and store the required statistics in separate BigQuery tables may also increase the storage and computational overhead, as you need to create and maintain additional tables for the statistics. Moreover, you need to ensure that the statistics are updated regularly to reflect the new data. References:

• BigQuery ML documentation
• Using the TRANSFORM clause
• Feature preprocessing with BigQuery ML

Model retraining is the process of updating an existing machine learning model with new data and parameters to improve its performance and accuracy. Model retraining is essential for maintaining the relevance and validity of the model, especially when the data or the environment changes over time. Model retraining can help to avoid or reduce the effects of model degradation, which is the phenomenon of the model’s predictive performance decreasing as it is tested on new datasets within rapidly evolving environments1.

For the use case of predicting sales numbers, model accuracy is crucial, because the production model is required to keep up with market changes. Market changes can affect the demand, supply, price, and preference of the products, and thus influence the sales numbers. If the model is not retrained with new data that reflects the market changes, it may become outdated and inaccurate, and fail to capture the patterns and trends of the sales numbers. Therefore, the most likely issue that is causing the steady decline in model accuracy is the lack of model retraining.

The other options are not as likely as option B, because they are not directly related to the model’s ability to adapt to market changes. Option A, poor data quality, may affect the model’s accuracy, but it is not a specific cause of model degradation over time. Option C, too few layers in the model for capturing information, may affect the model’s complexity and expressiveness, but it is not a specific cause of model degradation over time. Option D, incorrect data split ratio during model training, evaluation, validation, and test, may affect the model’s generalization and validation, but it is not a specific cause of model degradation over time. Therefore, option B, lack of model retraining, is the best answer for this question.

References:

• Beware Steep Decline: Understanding Model Degradation In Machine Learning Models

The best option for deploying a scikit-learn classification model to production is to deploy an online Vertex AI prediction endpoint and set the max replica count to 100. This option allows you to leverage the power and scalability of Google Cloud to serve requests 24/7 and handle millions of requests per second. Vertex AI is a unified platform for building and deploying machine learning solutions on Google Cloud. Vertex AI can deploy a trained scikit-learn model to an online prediction endpoint, which can provide low-latency predictions for individual instances. An online prediction endpoint consists of one or more replicas, which are copies of the model that run on virtual machines. The max replica count is a parameter that determines the maximum number of replicas that can be created for the endpoint. By setting the max replica count to 100, you can enable the endpoint to scale up to 100 replicas when the traffic increases, and scale down to zero replicas when the traffic decreases. This can help minimize the cost of deployment, as you only pay for the resources that you use. Moreover, you can use the autoscaling algorithm option to optimize the scaling behavior of the endpoint based on the latency and utilization metrics1.

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

• Option A: Deploying an online Vertex AI prediction endpoint and setting the max replica count to 1 would not be able to serve requests 24/7 and handle millions of requests per second. Setting the max replica count to 1 would limit the endpoint to only one replica, which can cause performance issues and service disruptions when the traffic increases. Moreover, setting the max replica count to 1 would prevent the endpoint from scaling down to zero replicas when the traffic decreases, which can increase the cost of deployment, as you pay for the resources that you do not use1.
• Option C: Deploying an online Vertex AI prediction endpoint with one GPU per replica and setting the max replica count to 1 would not be able to serve requests 24/7 and handle millions of requests per second, and would increase the cost of deployment. Adding a GPU to each replica would increase the computational power of the endpoint, but it would also increase the cost of deployment, as GPUs are more expensive than CPUs. Moreover, setting the max replica count to 1 would limit the endpoint to only one replica, which can cause performance issues and service disruptions when the traffic increases, and prevent the endpoint from scaling down to zero replicas when the traffic decreases1. Furthermore, scikit-learn models do not benefit from GPUs, as scikit-learn is not optimized for GPU acceleration2.
• Option D: Deploying an online Vertex AI prediction endpoint with one GPU per replica and setting the max replica count to 100 would be able to serve requests 24/7 and handle millions of requests per second, but it would increase the cost of deployment. Adding a GPU to each replica would increase the computational power of the endpoint, but it would also increase the cost of deployment, as GPUs are more expensive than CPUs. Setting the max replica count to 100 would enable the endpoint to scale up to 100 replicas when the traffic increases, and scale down to zero replicas when the traffic decreases, which can help minimize the cost of deployment. However, scikit-learn models do not benefit from GPUs, as scikit-learn is not optimized for GPU acceleration2. Therefore, using GPUs for scikit-learn models would be unnecessary and wasteful.

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
• Online prediction
• Scaling online prediction
• scikit-learn FAQ

• Option A is incorrect because using Kubeflow Pipelines on Google Kubernetes Engine is not the most convenient way to orchestrate the entire pipeline with minimal cluster management. Kubeflow Pipelines is an open-source platform that allows you to build, run, and manage ML pipelines using containers1. Google Kubernetes Engine is a service that allows you to create and manage clusters of virtual machines that run Kubernetes, an open-source system for orchestrating containerized applications2. However, this option requires more effort and resources than option B, as it involves creating and configuring the clusters, installing and maintaining Kubeflow Pipelines, and writing and running the pipeline code.
• Option B is correct because using Vertex AI Pipelines with TensorFlow Extended (TFX) SDK is the best way to orchestrate the entire pipeline with minimal cluster management. Vertex AI Pipelines is a service that allows you to create and run scalable and portable ML pipelines on Google Cloud3. TensorFlow Extended (TFX) is a framework that provides a set of components and libraries for building production-ready ML pipelines using TensorFlow4. You can use Vertex AI Pipelines with TFX SDK to ingest and preprocess the data in Cloud Storage, train and tune the object model using Vertex AI jobs, and deploy the model to an endpoint, using predefined or custom components. Vertex AI Pipelines handles the underlying infrastructure and orchestration for you, so you don’t need to worry about cluster management or scalability.
• Option C is incorrect because using Vertex AI Pipelines with Kubeflow Pipelines SDK is not the most suitable way to orchestrate the entire pipeline with minimal cluster management. Kubeflow Pipelines SDK is a library that allows you to build and run ML pipelines using Kubeflow Pipelines5. You can use Vertex AI Pipelines with Kubeflow Pipelines SDK to create and run ML pipelines on Google Cloud, using containers. However, this option is less convenient and consistent than option B, as it requires you to use different APIs and tools for different steps of the pipeline, such as Vertex AI SDK for training and deployment, and Kubeflow Pipelines SDK for ingestion and preprocessing. Moreover, this option does not leverage the benefits of TFX, such as the standard components, the metadata store, or the ML Metadata library.
• Option D is incorrect because using Cloud Composer for the orchestration is not the most efficient way to orchestrate the entire pipeline with minimal cluster management. Cloud Composer is a service that allows you to create and run workflows using Apache Airflow, an open-source platform for orchestrating complex tasks. You can use Cloud Composer to orchestrate the entire pipeline, by creating and managing DAGs (directed acyclic graphs) that define the dependencies and order of the tasks. However, this option is more complex and costly than option B, as it involves creating and configuring the environments, installing and maintaining Airflow, and writing and running the DAGs.

References:

• Kubeflow Pipelines documentation
• Google Kubernetes Engine documentation
• Vertex AI Pipelines documentation
• TensorFlow Extended documentation
• Kubeflow Pipelines SDK documentation
• [Cloud Composer documentation]
• [Vertex AI documentation]
• [Cloud Storage documentation]
• [TensorFlow documentation]

Kubeflow Pipelines allows for efficient use of compute resources through parallel task execution and caching, which eliminates redundant executions1. By enabling caching in all the steps of the Kubeflow pipeline, you can avoid re-running the same steps when you execute the pipeline multiple times. This can significantly speed up the pipeline execution and reduce your development time without incurring additional costs

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “design, build, and productionalize ML models to solve business challenges using Google Cloud technologies”. AutoML Vision2 is a service that allows you to train and deploy custom vision models for image classification and object detection. AutoML Vision simplifies the model development process by providing a graphical user interface and a no-code approach. You can use AutoML Vision to train an object detection model by using the annotated image data, and evaluate the model performance using metrics such as mean average precision (mAP) and intersection over union (IoU)3. Therefore, option B is the best way to quickly create an initial model for the given use case. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• AutoML Vision
• Object detection evaluation
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

TensorFlow Serving is a service that allows you to deploy and serve TensorFlow models in a scalable and efficient way. TensorFlow Serving supports various platforms and hardware, such as CPU, GPU, and TPU. However, the default TensorFlow Serving binaries are built with generic CPU instructions, which may not leverage the full potential of the CPU architecture. To improve the serving latency and performance, you can recompile TensorFlow Serving using the source code and enable CPU-specific optimizations, such as AVX, AVX2, and FMA1. These optimizations can speed up the computation and inference of the TensorFlow models, especially for deep neural networks.

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a service that allows you to run and manage containerized applications on Google Cloud using Kubernetes. GKE supports various types and sizes of nodes, which are the virtual machines that run the containers. GKE also supports different CPU platforms, which are the generations and models of the CPUs that power the nodes. GKE allows you to choose a baseline minimum CPU platform for your node pool, which is a group of nodes with the same configuration. By choosing a baseline minimum CPU platform, you can ensure that your nodes have the CPU features and capabilities that match your workload requirements2.

For the use case of serving a few thousand queries per second and experiencing latency issues, the best option is to recompile TensorFlow Serving using the source to support CPU-specific optimizations, and instruct GKE to choose an appropriate baseline minimum CPU platform for serving nodes. This option can improve the serving latency and performance without changing the underlying infrastructure, as it only involves rebuilding the TensorFlow Serving binary and selecting the CPU platform for the GKE nodes. This option can also take advantage of the CPU-only pods that are running on GKE, as it can optimize the CPU utilization and efficiency. Therefore, recompiling TensorFlow Serving using the source to support CPU-specific optimizations and instructing GKE to choose an appropriate baseline minimum CPU platform for serving nodes is the best option for this use case.

References:

• Building TensorFlow Serving from source
• Specifying a minimum CPU platform for a node pool

 Traffic splitting is a feature of Vertex AI that allows you to distribute the prediction requests among multiple models or model versions within the same endpoint. You can specify the percentage of traffic that each model or model version receives, and change it at any time. Traffic splitting can help you test the new model in production without creating a new endpoint or a separate service. You can deploy the new model to the existing Vertex AI endpoint, and use traffic splitting to send 5% of production traffic to the new model. You can monitor the end-user metrics, such as listening time, to compare the performance of the new model and the previous model. If the end-user metrics improve between models over time, you can gradually increase the percentage of production traffic sent to the new model. This solution can help you test the new model in production while minimizing complexity and cost. References:

• Traffic splitting | Vertex AI
• Deploying models to endpoints | Vertex AI

• Option A is correct because using F-score where recall is weighed more than precision is a suitable metric for binary classification with imbalanced data. F-score is a harmonic mean of precision and recall, which are two metrics that measure the accuracy and completeness of the positive class1. Precision is the fraction of true positives among all predicted positives, while recall is the fraction of true positives among all actual positives1. When the data is imbalanced, the positive class is the minority class, which is usually the class of interest. For example, in this case, the positive class is the images that contain the company’s logo, which are rare but important to detect. By weighing recall more than precision, we can emphasize the importance of finding all the positive examples, even if some false positives are included2.
• Option B is incorrect because using RMSE (root mean squared error) is not a valid metric for binary classification with imbalanced data. RMSE is a metric that measures the average magnitude of the errors between the predicted and actual values3. RMSE is suitable for regression problems, where the target variable is continuous, not for classification problems, where the target variable is discrete4.
• Option C is incorrect because using F1 score is not the best metric for binary classification with imbalanced data. F1 score is a special case of F-score where precision and recall are equally weighted1. F1 score is suitable for balanced data, where the positive and negative classes are equally important and frequent5. However, for imbalanced data, the positive class is more important and less frequent than the negative class, so F1 score may not reflect the performance of the model well2.
• Option D is incorrect because using F-score where precision is weighed more than recall is not a good metric for binary classification with imbalanced data. By weighing precision more than recall, we can emphasize the importance of minimizing the false positives, even if some true positives are missed2. However, for imbalanced data, the true positives are more important and less frequent than the false positives, so this metric may not reflect the performance of the model well2.

References:

• Precision, recall, and F-measure
• F-score for imbalanced data
• RMSE
• Regression vs classification
• F1 score
• [Imbalanced classification]
• [Binary classification]

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “configure and optimize model training jobs”. Cloud TPU VMs2 are a new way to access Cloud TPUs directly on the TPU host machines, offering a simpler and more flexible user experience. Cloud TPU VMs are optimized for ML model training and can reduce training time and cost. You can use Cloud TPU VMs to train Transformer models in TensorFlow by using the tf.distribute.TPUStrategy3, which handles the distribution of computations across the TPU cores. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Cloud TPU VMs
• Distributed training with TPUStrategy
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

 The best option for performing hyperparameter tuning on Vertex AI to determine the appropriate embedding dimension and the optimal learning rate is to use UNIT_LINEAR_SCALE for the embedding dimension, UNIT_LOG_SCALE for the learning rate, and a large number of parallel trials. This option has the following advantages:

• It matches the appropriate scaling type for each hyperparameter, based on their range and distribution. The embedding dimension is an integer hyperparameter that varies linearly between 16 and 64, so using UNIT_LINEAR_SCALE makes sense. The learning rate is a double hyperparameter that varies exponentially between 10e-05 and 10e-02, so using UNIT_LOG_SCALE is more suitable.
• It maximizes the exploration of the hyperparameter space, by using a large number of parallel trials. Since training time is not a concern, using more trials can help find the best combination of hyperparameters that maximizes model accuracy. The default Bayesian optimization tuning algorithm can efficiently sample the hyperparameter space and converge to the optimal values.

The other options are less optimal for the following reasons:

• Option B: Using UNIT_LINEAR_SCALE for the embedding dimension, UNIT_LOG_SCALE for the learning rate, and a small number of parallel trials, reduces the exploration of the hyperparameter space, by using a small number of parallel trials. Since training time is not a concern, using fewer trials can miss some potentially good combinations of hyperparameters that maximize model accuracy. The default Bayesian optimization tuning algorithm can benefit from more trials to sample the hyperparameter space and converge to the optimal values.
• Option C: Using UNIT_LOG_SCALE for the embedding dimension, UNIT_LINEAR_SCALE for the learning rate, and a large number of parallel trials, mismatches the appropriate scaling type for each hyperparameter, based on their range and distribution. The embedding dimension is an integer hyperparameter that varies linearly between 16 and 64, so using UNIT_LOG_SCALE is not suitable. The learning rate is a double hyperparameter that varies exponentially between 10e-05 and 10e-02, so using UNIT_LINEAR_SCALE makes less sense.
• Option D: Using UNIT_LOG_SCALE for the embedding dimension, UNIT_LINEAR_SCALE for the learning rate, and a small number of parallel trials, combines the drawbacks of option B and option C. It mismatches the appropriate scaling type for each hyperparameter, based on their range and distribution, and reduces the exploration of the hyperparameter space, by using a small number of parallel trials.

References:

• [Vertex AI: Hyperparameter tuning overview]
• [Vertex AI: Configuring the hyperparameter tuning job]

 The best option for developing an image classification model by using a large dataset that contains labeled images in a Cloud Storage bucket is to import the labeled images as a managed dataset in Vertex AI and use AutoML to train the model. This option allows you to leverage the power and simplicity of Google Cloud to create and deploy a high-quality image classification model with minimal code and configuration. Vertex AI is a unified platform for building and deploying machine learning solutions on Google Cloud. Vertex AI can create a managed dataset from a Cloud Storage bucket that contains labeled images, which can be used to train an AutoML model. AutoML is a service that can automatically build and optimize machine learning models for various tasks, such as image classification, object detection, natural language processing, and tabular data analysis. AutoML can handle the complex aspects of machine learning, such as feature engineering, model architecture, hyperparameter tuning, and model evaluation. AutoML can also evaluate, deploy, and monitor the image classification model, and provide online or batch predictions. By using Vertex AI and AutoML, users can develop an image classification model by using a large dataset with ease and efficiency.

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

• Option A: Using Vertex AI Pipelines with the Kubeflow Pipelines SDK to create a pipeline that reads the images from Cloud Storage and trains the model would require more skills and steps than using Vertex AI and AutoML. Vertex AI Pipelines is a service that can orchestrate machine learning workflows using Vertex AI. Vertex AI Pipelines can run preprocessing and training steps on custom Docker images, and evaluate, deploy, and monitor the machine learning model. Kubeflow Pipelines SDK is a Python library that can create and run pipelines on Vertex AI Pipelines or on Kubeflow, an open-source platform for machine learning on Kubernetes. However, using Vertex AI Pipelines and Kubeflow Pipelines SDK would require writing code, building Docker images, defining pipeline components and steps, and managing the pipeline execution and artifacts. Moreover, Vertex AI Pipelines and Kubeflow Pipelines SDK are not specialized for image classification, and users would need to use other libraries or frameworks, such as TensorFlow or PyTorch, to build and train the image classification model.
• Option B: Using Vertex AI Pipelines with TensorFlow Extended (TFX) to create a pipeline that reads the images from Cloud Storage and trains the model would require more skills and steps than using Vertex AI and AutoML. TensorFlow Extended (TFX) is a framework that can create and run end-to-end machine learning pipelines on TensorFlow, a popular library for building and training deep learning models. TFX can preprocess the data, train and evaluate the model, validate and push the model, and serve the model for online or batch predictions. However, using Vertex AI Pipelines and TFX would require writing code, building Docker images, defining pipeline components and steps, and managing the pipeline execution and artifacts. Moreover, TFX is not optimized for image classification, and users would need to use other libraries or tools, such as TensorFlow Data Validation, TensorFlow Transform, and TensorFlow Hub, to handle the image data and the model architecture.
• Option D: Converting the image dataset to a tabular format using Dataflow, loading the data into BigQuery, and using BigQuery ML to train the model would not handle the image data properly and could result in a poor model performance. Dataflow is a service that can create scalable and reliable pipelines to process large volumes of data from various sources. Dataflow can preprocess the data by using Apache Beam, a programming model for defining and executing data processing workflows. BigQuery is a serverless, scalable, and cost-effective data warehouse that can perform fast and interactive queries on large datasets. BigQuery ML is a service that can create and train machine learning models by using SQL queries on BigQuery. However, converting the image data to a tabular format would lose the spatial and semantic information of the images, which are essential for image classification. Moreover, BigQuery ML is not specialized for image classification, and users would need to use other tools or techniques, such as feature hashing, embedding, or one-hot encoding, to handle the categorical features.

The best option for productionizing a Keras model is to use TensorFlow Extended (TFX), a framework for building end-to-end machine learning pipelines that can handle large-scale data and complex workflows. TFX provides standard components for data ingestion, transformation, validation, analysis, training, tuning, serving, and monitoring. TFX pipelines can be orchestrated with Vertex AI Pipelines, a managed service that runs on Google Cloud Platform and leverages Kubernetes and Argo. Vertex AI Pipelines allows you to automate the execution of your TFX pipeline steps, schedule retraining jobs, and scale up or down the resources as needed. By using TFX and Vertex AI Pipelines, you can take advantage of the following benefits:

• You can reuse the existing code in your Jupyter notebook, as TFX supports Keras as a first-class citizen. You can also use the Keras Tuner to optimize your model hyperparameters.
• You can ensure data quality and consistency by using the TFX Data Validation component, which can detect anomalies, drift, and skew in your data. You can also use the TFX SchemaGen component to generate a schema for your data and enforce it throughout the pipeline.
• You can analyze your model performance and fairness by using the TFX Model Analysis component, which can produce various metrics and visualizations. You can also use the TFX Model Validation component to compare your new model with a baseline model and set thresholds for deploying the model to production.
• You can deploy your model to various serving platforms by using the TFX Pusher component, which can push your model to Vertex AI, Cloud AI Platform, TensorFlow Serving, or TensorFlow Lite. You can also use the TFX Model Registry to manage the versions and metadata of your models.
• You can monitor your model performance and health by using the TFX Model Monitor component, which can detect data drift, concept drift, and prediction skew in your model. You can also use the TFX Evaluator component to compute metrics and validate your model against a baseline or a slice of data.
• You can reduce the cost and complexity of managing your own infrastructure by using Vertex AI Pipelines, which provides a serverless environment for running your TFX pipeline. You can also use the Vertex AI Experiments and Vertex AI TensorBoard to track and visualize your pipeline runs.

References:

• [TensorFlow Extended (TFX)]
• [Vertex AI Pipelines]
• [TFX User Guide]

The problem with the current approach is that it relies on the Cloud Translation API to translate the chat messages into a common language before embedding them with the in-house word2vec model. This introduces two sources of error: the translation quality and the word2vec quality. The translation quality may vary across different languages, depending on the availability of data and the complexity of the grammar and vocabulary. The word2vec quality may also vary depending on the size and diversity of the corpus used to train it. These errors may affect the performance of the classifier that moderates the chat messages, resulting in significant differences across the languages.

A better approach would be to train a classifier using the chat messages in their original language, without relying on the Cloud Translation API or the in-house word2vec model. This way, the classifier can learn the nuances and subtleties of each language, and avoid the errors introduced by the translation and embedding processes. This would also reduce the latency and cost of the moderation system, as it would not need to invoke the Cloud Translation API for every message. To train a classifier using the chat messages in their original language, one could use a multilingual pre-trained model such as mBERT or XLM-R, which can handle multiple languages and domains. Alternatively, one could train a separate classifier for each language, using a monolingual pre-trained model such as BERT or a custom model tailored to the specific language and task.

References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate
• Google Cloud launches machine learning engineer certification
• [mBERT: Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers]
• [XLM-R: Unsupervised Cross-lingual Representation Learning at Scale]
• [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding]

 XGBoost is a popular open-source library that provides a scalable and efficient implementation of gradient boosted trees. You can use XGBoost to train a classification or regression model on tabular data. You can also use Vertex AI to productionize the model and expose it for internal use as an HTTP microservice. Vertex AI is a service that allows you to create and train ML models using Google Cloud technologies. You can use a prebuilt XGBoost Vertex container to create a model and deploy it to Vertex AI Endpoints. A prebuilt Vertex container is a container image that contains the dependencies and libraries needed to run a specific ML framework, such as XGBoost. You can use a prebuilt Vertex container to simplify the model creation and deployment process, without having to build your own custom container. Vertex AI Endpoints is a service that allows you to serve your ML models online and scale them automatically. You can use Vertex AI Endpoints to deploy the model from the prebuilt Vertex container and expose it as an HTTP microservice. You can also configure the endpoint to handle a small number of incoming requests, and optimize the latency and cost of serving the model. By using a prebuilt XGBoost Vertex container and Vertex AI Endpoints, you can productionize the model with the least amount of effort and latency. References:

• XGBoost documentation
• Vertex AI documentation
• Prebuilt Vertex container documentation
• Vertex AI Endpoints documentation
• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate

 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]

• Option A is not the best answer because it requires using Apache Spark and Dataproc, which may incur additional cost and complexity for running and managing the cluster. It also requires saving the preprocessed data as CSV files in a Cloud Storage bucket, which may increase the storage cost and the data transfer latency.
• Option B is not the best answer because it requires loading the data into a pandas DataFrame, which may not be scalable or efficient for large datasets. It also requires training the model directly on the DataFrame, which may not leverage the distributed computing capabilities of BigQuery.
• Option C is the best answer because it allows performing preprocessing in BigQuery by using SQL, which is a cost-effective and efficient way to manipulate large datasets. It also allows using the BigQueryClient in TensorFlow to read the data directly from BigQuery, which is a convenient and fast way to access the data for training the model1.
• Option D is not the best answer because it requires using Apache Beam and Dataflow, which may incur additional cost and complexity for running and managing the pipeline. It also requires saving the preprocessed data as CSV files in a Cloud Storage bucket, which may increase the storage cost and the data transfer latency.

References:

• 1: Read data from BigQuery | TensorFlow I/O

AutoML Tables is a service that allows you to automatically build and deploy state-of-the-art machine learning models on structured data without writing code. You can use AutoML Tables to perform the following steps for the classification task:

• Exploratory data analysis: AutoML Tables provides a graphical user interface (GUI) and a command-line interface (CLI) to explore your data, visualize statistics, and identify potential issues.
• Feature selection: AutoML Tables automatically selects the most relevant features for your model based on the data schema and the target column. You can also manually exclude or include features, or create new features from existing ones using feature engineering.
• Model building: AutoML Tables automatically builds and evaluates multiple machine learning models using different algorithms and architectures. You can also specify the optimization objective, the budget, and the evaluation metric for your model.
• Training and hyperparameter tuning: AutoML Tables automatically trains and tunes your model using the best practices and techniques from Google’s research and engineering teams. You can monitor the training progress and the performance of your model on the GUI or the CLI.
• Serving: AutoML Tables automatically deploys your model to a fully managed, scalable, and secure environment. You can use the GUI or the CLI to request predictions from your model, either online (synchronously) or offline (asynchronously).

References:

• [AutoML Tables documentation]
• [AutoML Tables overview]
• [AutoML Tables how-to guides]

• Dataflow is a fully managed service for executing Apache Beam pipelines that can process streaming or batch data1.
• Al Platform is a unified platform that enables you to build and run machine learning applications across Google Cloud2.
• BigQuery is a serverless, highly scalable, and cost-effective cloud data warehouse designed for business agility3.

These services are suitable for building an ML model to detect anomalies in real-time sensor data, as they can handle large-scale data ingestion, preprocessing, training, serving, storage, and visualization. The other options are not as suitable because:

• DataProc is a service for running Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop clusters, which are not optimized for streaming data processing4.
• AutoML is a suite of machine learning products that enables developers with limited machine learning expertise to train high-quality models specific to their business needs5. However, it does not support custom models or real-time predictions.
• Cloud Bigtable is a scalable, fully managed NoSQL database service for large analytical and operational workloads. However, it is not designed for ad hoc queries or interactive analysis.
• Cloud Functions is a serverless execution environment for building and connecting cloud services. However, it is not suitable for storing or visualizing data.
• Cloud Storage is a service for storing and accessing data on Google Cloud. However, it is not a data warehouse and does not support SQL queries or visualization tools.

To organize the artifacts for dozens of pipelines, you should store the parameters in Vertex ML Metadata, store the models’ source code in GitHub, and store the models’ binaries in Cloud Storage. This option has the following advantages:

• Vertex ML Metadata is a service that helps you track and manage the metadata of your ML workflows, such as datasets, models, metrics, and parameters1. It can also help you with data lineage, model versioning, and model performance monitoring2.
• GitHub is a popular platform for hosting and collaborating on code repositories. It can help you manage the source code of your models, as well as the configuration files, scripts, and notebooks that are part of your ML pipelines3.
• Cloud Storage is a scalable and durable object storage service that can store any type of data, including model binaries4. It can also integrate with other services, such as Vertex AI, Cloud Functions, and Cloud Run, to enable easy deployment and serving of your models5.

References:

• 1: Introduction to Vertex ML Metadata | Vertex AI | Google Cloud
• 2: Manage metadata for ML workflows | Vertex AI | Google Cloud
• 3: GitHub - Where the world builds software
• 4: Cloud Storage | Google Cloud
• 5: Deploying models | Vertex AI | Google Cloud

• 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]

• Option A is incorrect because reinforcement learning is not a suitable approach to build a model that identifies defects in products based on images of the product taken at the end of the assembly line. Reinforcement learning is a type of machine learning that learns from its own actions and rewards, rather than from labeled data or explicit feedback1. Reinforcement learning is more suitable for problems that involve sequential decision making, such as games, robotics, or control systems1. However, defect detection is a problem that involves image classification or segmentation, which requires supervised learning, not reinforcement learning.
• Option B is incorrect because a recommender system is not a relevant approach to build a model that identifies defects in products based on images of the product taken at the end of the assembly line. A recommender system is a system that suggests items or actions to users based on their preferences, behavior, or context2. A recommender system is more suitable for problems that involve personalization, such as e-commerce, entertainment, or social media2. However, defect detection is a problem that involves image classification or segmentation, which requires supervised learning, not recommender system.
• Option C is incorrect because recurrent neural networks (RNN) are not the most efficient approach to build a model that identifies defects in products based on images of the product taken at the end of the assembly line. RNNs are a type of neural networks that can process sequential data, such as text, speech, or video, by maintaining a hidden state that captures the temporal dependencies3. RNNs are more suitable for problems that involve natural language processing, speech recognition, or video analysis3. However, defect detection is a problem that involves image classification or segmentation, which does not require temporal dependencies, but rather spatial dependencies. Moreover, RNNs are computationally expensive and prone to vanishing or exploding gradients4.
• Option D is correct because convolutional neural networks (CNN) are the best approach to build a model that identifies defects in products based on images of the product taken at the end of the assembly line. CNNs are a type of neural networks that can process image data, by applying convolutional filters that extract local features and reduce the dimensionality of the data5. CNNs are more suitable for problems that involve image classification, object detection, or segmentation5. CNNs can preprocess the images with lower computation to quickly extract features of defects in products, by using techniques such as pooling, dropout, or batch normalization6.

References:

• Reinforcement learning
• Recommender system
• Recurrent neural network
• Vanishing and exploding gradients
• Convolutional neural network
• CNN techniques
• [Defect detection]
• [Image classification]
• [Image segmentation]

 Overfitting occurs when a model tries to fit the training data so closely that it does not generalize well to new data. Overfitting can be caused by having a model that is too complex for the data, such as having too many parameters or layers. Overfitting can lead to poor performance on the validation data, which reflects how the model will perform on unseen data1

To prevent overfitting, one strategy is to use regularization techniques that penalize the complexity of the model and encourage it to learn simpler patterns. Two common regularization techniques for deep neural networks are L2 regularization and dropout. L2 regularization adds a term to the loss function that is proportional to the squared magnitude of the model’s weights. This term penalizes large weights and encourages the model to use smaller weights. Dropout randomly drops out some units in the network during training, which prevents co-adaptation of features and reduces the effective number of parameters. Both L2 regularization and dropout have hyperparameters that control the strength of the regularization effect23

Another strategy to prevent overfitting is to use hyperparameter tuning, which is the process of finding the optimal values for the parameters of the model that affect its performance. Hyperparameter tuning can help find the best combination of hyperparameters that minimize the validation loss and improve the generalization ability of the model. AI Platform provides a service for hyperparameter tuning that can run multiple trials in parallel and use different search algorithms to find the best solution.

Therefore, the best strategy to use when retraining the model is to run a hyperparameter tuning job on AI Platform to optimize for the L2 regularization and dropout parameters. This will allow the model to find the optimal balance between fitting the training data and generalizing to new data. The other options are not as effective, as they either use fixed values for the regularization parameters, which may not be optimal, or they do not address the issue of overfitting at all.

References: 1: Generalization: Peril of Overfitting 2: Regularization for Deep Learning 3: Dropout: A Simple Way to Prevent Neural Networks from Overfitting : [Hyperparameter tuning overview]

According to the web search results, Cloud Build1 is a service that executes your builds on Google Cloud Platform infrastructure. Cloud Build can import source code from Cloud Source Repositories2, Cloud Storage, GitHub, Bitbucket, or any publicly hosted Git repository. Cloud Build allows you to create and manage build triggers, which are automated workflows that run whenever a code change is pushed to your source repository. You can use Cloud Build triggers to automatically retrain your ML models whenever there is any modification of the code. Therefore, option B is the best way to set up the CI pipeline for the given use case, as it allows you to configure a Cloud Build trigger with the event set as “Push to a branch”, which means the trigger will run whenever a new commit is pushed to a specific branch of your source repository. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Cloud Build
• Cloud Source Repositories
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

• Monitoring model performance is an essential part of production readiness, as it allows the team to detect and address any issues that may arise after deployment, such as data drift, model degradation, or errors.
• Other Options:

BigQuery is a service that allows you to store and query large amounts of data in a scalable and cost-effective way. You can use BigQuery to ingest the Avro files from the Cloud Storage bucket and perform analytics on the structured data. Avro is a binary file format that can store complex data types and schemas. You can use the bq load command or the BigQuery API to load the Avro files into a BigQuery table. You can then use SQL queries to analyze the data and generate insights. Dataflow is a service that allows you to create and run scalable and portable data processing pipelines on Google Cloud. You can use Dataflow to create the features for your ML models, such as transforming, aggregating, and encoding the data. You can use the Apache Beam SDK to write your Dataflow pipeline code in Python or Java. You can also use the built-in transforms or custom transforms to apply the feature engineering logic to your data. Vertex AI Feature Store is a service that allows you to store and manage your ML features on Google Cloud. You can use Vertex AI Feature Store to host the features that your ML models use for online prediction. Online prediction is a type of prediction that provides low-latency responses to individual or small batches of input data. You can use the Vertex AI Feature Store API to write the features from your Dataflow pipeline to a feature store entity type. You can then use the Vertex AI Feature Store online serving API to read the features from the feature store and pass them to your ML models for online prediction. By using BigQuery, Dataflow, and Vertex AI Feature Store, you can configure a pipeline that performs analytics, creates features, and hosts the features that your ML models use for online prediction. References:

• BigQuery documentation
• Dataflow documentation
• Vertex AI Feature Store documentation
• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate

The best option to build a comprehensive system that recommends images to users that are similar in appearance to their own uploaded images is to download a pretrained convolutional neural network (CNN), and use the model to generate embeddings of the input images. Embeddings are low-dimensional representations of high-dimensional data that capture the essential features and semantics of the data. By using a pretrained CNN, you can leverage the knowledge learned from large-scale image datasets, such as ImageNet, and apply it to your own domain. A pretrained CNN can be used as a feature extractor, where the output of the last hidden layer (or any intermediate layer) is taken as the embedding vector for the input image. You can then measure the similarity between embeddings using a distance metric, such as cosine similarity or Euclidean distance, and recommend images that have the highest similarity scores to the user’s uploaded image. Option A is incorrect because downloading a pretrained CNN and fine-tuning the model to predict hashtags based on the input images may not capture the visual similarity of the images, as hashtags may not reflect the appearance of the images accurately. For example, two images of different breeds of dogs may have the same hashtag #dog, but they may not look similar to each other. Moreover, fine-tuning the model may require additional data and computational resources, and it may not generalize well to new images that have different or missing hashtags. Option B is incorrect because retrieving image labels and dominant colors from the input images using the Vision API may not capture the visual similarity of the images, as labels and colors may not reflect the fine-grained details of the images. For example, two images of the same breed of dog may have different labels and colors depending on the background, lighting, and angle of the image. Moreover, using the Vision API may incur additional costs and latency, and it may not be able to handle custom or domain-specific labels. Option C is incorrect because using the provided hashtags to create a collaborative filtering algorithm may not capture the visual similarity of the images, as collaborative filtering relies on the ratings or preferences of users, not the features of the images. For example, two images of different animals may have similar ratings or preferences from users, but they may not look similar to each other. Moreover, collaborative filtering may suffer from the cold start problem, where new images or users that have no ratings or preferences cannot be recommended. References:

• Image similarity search with TensorFlow
• Image embeddings documentation
• Pretrained models documentation
• Similarity metrics documentation

This is not a good result because the model is performing worse than predicting that people will always renew their subscription. This option has the following reasons:

• It indicates that the model is not learning from the data, but rather memorizing the majority class. Since 90% of the individuals renew their subscription every year, the model can achieve a 90% accuracy by simply predicting that everyone will renew their subscription, without considering the features or the patterns in the data. However, the model’s accuracy for predicting those who renew their subscription is only 82%, which is lower than the baseline accuracy of 90%. This suggests that the model is overfitting to the minority class (those who cancel their subscription), and underfitting to the majority class (those who renew their subscription).
• It implies that the model is not useful for the business problem, as it cannot identify the customers who are at risk of churning. The goal of predicting whether customers will cancel their annual subscription is to prevent customer churn and increase customer retention. However, the model’s accuracy for predicting those who cancel their subscription is 99%, which is too high and unrealistic, as it means that the model can almost perfectly identify the customers who will churn, without any false positives or false negatives. This may indicate that the model is cheating or exploiting some leakage in the data, such as a feature that reveals the outcome of the prediction. Moreover, the model’s accuracy for predicting those who renew their subscription is 82%, which is too low and unreliable, as it means that the model can miss many customers who will churn, and falsely label them as renewing customers. This can lead to losing customers and revenue, and failing to take proactive actions to retain them.

References:

• How to Evaluate Machine Learning Models: Classification Metrics | Machine Learning Mastery
• Imbalanced Classification: Predicting Subscription Churn | Machine Learning Mastery

 The best way to distribute the training examples across the train-test-eval subsets while maintaining the 80-10-10 proportion is to use option C. This option ensures that each subset contains a balanced and representative sample of the different classes (Democrat and Republican) and the different authors. This way, the model can learn from a diverse and comprehensive set of articles and avoid overfitting or underfitting. Option C also avoids the problem of data leakage, which occurs when the same author appears in more than one subset, potentially biasing the model and inflating its performance. Therefore, option C is the most suitable technique for this use case.

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]

The best option for scaling the training workload while minimizing cost is to package the code with Setuptools, and use a pre-built container. Train the model with Vertex AI using a custom tier that contains the required GPUs. This option has the following advantages:

• It allows the code to be easily packaged and deployed, as Setuptools is a Python tool that helps to create and distribute Python packages, and pre-built containers are Docker images that contain all the dependencies and libraries needed to run the code. By packaging the code with Setuptools, and using a pre-built container, you can avoid the hassle and complexity of building and maintaining your own custom container, and ensure the compatibility and portability of your code across different environments.
• It leverages the scalability and performance of Vertex AI, which is a fully managed service that provides various tools and features for machine learning, such as training, tuning, serving, and monitoring. By training the model with Vertex AI, you can take advantage of the distributed and parallel training capabilities of Vertex AI, which can speed up the training process and improve the model quality. Vertex AI also supports various frameworks and models, such as PyTorch and ResNet50, and allows you to use custom containers and custom tiers to customize your training configuration and resources.
• It reduces the cost and complexity of the training process, as Vertex AI allows you to use a custom tier that contains the required GPUs, which can optimize the resource utilization and allocation for your training job. By using a custom tier that contains 4 V100 GPUs, you can match the number and type of GPUs that you plan to use for your training job, and avoid paying for unnecessary or underutilized resources. Vertex AI also offers various pricing options and discounts, such as per-second billing, sustained use discounts, and preemptible VMs, that can lower the cost of the training process.

The other options are less optimal for the following reasons:

• Option A: Configuring a Compute Engine VM with all the dependencies that launches the training. Train the model with Vertex AI using a custom tier that contains the required GPUs, introduces additional complexity and overhead. This option requires creating and managing a Compute Engine VM, which is a virtual machine that runs on Google Cloud. However, using a Compute Engine VM to launch the training may not be necessary or efficient, as it requires installing and configuring all the dependencies and libraries needed to run the code, and maintaining and updating the VM. Moreover, using a Compute Engine VM to launch the training may incur additional cost and latency, as it requires paying for the VM usage and transferring the data and the code between the VM and Vertex AI.
• Option C: Creating a Vertex AI Workbench user-managed notebooks instance with 4 V100 GPUs, and using it to train the model, introduces additional cost and risk. This option requires creating and managing a Vertex AI Workbench user-managed notebooks instance, which is a service that allows you to create and run Jupyter notebooks on Google Cloud. However, using a Vertex AI Workbench user-managed notebooks instance to train the model may not be optimal or secure, as it requires paying for the notebooks instance usage, which can be expensive and wasteful, especially if the notebooks instance is not used for other purposes. Moreover, using a Vertex AI Workbench user-managed notebooks instance to train the model may expose the model and the data to potential security or privacy issues, as the notebooks instance is not fully managed by Google Cloud, and may be accessed or modified by unauthorized users or malicious actors.
• Option D: Creating a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster with a node pool that has 4 V100 GPUs. Prepare and submit a TFJob operator to this node pool, introduces additional complexity and cost. This option requires creating and managing a Google Kubernetes Engine cluster, which is a fully managed service that runs Kubernetes clusters on Google Cloud. Moreover, this option requires creating and managing a node pool that has 4 V100 GPUs, which is a group of nodes that share the same configuration and resources. Furthermore, this option requires preparing and submitting a TFJob operator to this node pool, which is a Kubernetes custom resource that defines a TensorFlow training job. However, using Google Kubernetes Engine, node pool, and TFJob operator to train the model may not be necessary or efficient, as it requires configuring and maintaining the cluster, the node pool, and the TFJob operator, and paying for their usage. Moreover, using Google Kubernetes Engine, node pool, and TFJob operator to train the model may not be compatible or scalable, as they are designed for TensorFlow models, not PyTorch models, and may not support distributed or parallel training.

References:

• [Vertex AI: Training with custom containers]
• [Vertex AI: Using custom machine types]
• [Setuptools documentation]
• [PyTorch documentation]
• [ResNet50 | PyTorch]

This answer is correct because it uses a regression model to estimate the number of passengers at each shuttle station, which is a continuous variable. A tree-based regression model can handle both numerical and categorical features, such as the time of day, the location of the station, and the weather conditions. Based on the predicted number of passengers, the organization can dispatch a shuttle that has enough capacity and provide a map that shows the required stops. This way, the organization can optimize the shuttle service route and reduce the waiting time and fuel consumption. References:

• [Tree-based regression models]

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “automate and orchestrate ML pipelines using Cloud Composer”. Vertex AI Pipelines2 is a service that allows you to orchestrate your ML workflows using Kubeflow Pipelines SDK v2 or TensorFlow Extended. Vertex AI Pipelines supports execution caching, which means that if you run a pipeline and it reaches a component that has already been run with the same inputs and parameters, the component does not run again. Instead, the component uses the output from the previous run. This can save you time and resources when you are iterating on your pipeline. Therefore, option A is the best way to reduce model development costs, as it enables execution caching for the data export and preprocessing steps, which are likely to be the same for each model iteration. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Vertex AI Pipelines
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

 Oversampling is a technique for dealing with imbalanced datasets, where the majority class dominates the minority class. It balances the distribution of classes by increasing the number of samples in the minority class. Oversampling can improve the performance of a classifier by reducing the bias towards the majority class and increasing the sensitivity to the minority class.

In this case, the dataset includes transactions, of which 1% are identified as fraudulent. This means that the fraudulent transactions are the minority class and the non-fraudulent transactions are the majority class. A random forest model trained on this dataset might have a low recall for the fraudulent transactions, meaning that it might miss many of them and fail to detect fraud. This could have a high cost for the bank and its customers.

One way to overcome this problem is to oversample the fraudulent transactions 10 times, meaning that each fraudulent transaction is duplicated 10 times in the training dataset. This would increase the proportion of fraudulent transactions from 1% to about 10%, making the dataset more balanced. This would also make the random forest model more aware of the patterns and features that distinguish fraudulent transactions from non-fraudulent ones, and thus improve its accuracy and recall for the minority class.

For more information about oversampling and other techniques for imbalanced data, see the following references:

• Random Oversampling and Undersampling for Imbalanced Classification
• Exploring Oversampling Techniques for Imbalanced Datasets

• Option A is not the best answer because it requires storing the pickled model in Cloud Storage, which may incur additional cost and latency for loading the model. It also requires building a Flask-based app, which may not be necessary for a simple data preprocessing step.
• Option B is not the best answer because it requires building a Flask-based app, which may not be necessary for a simple data preprocessing step. It also requires packaging the app and the pickled model in a custom container image, which may increase the size and complexity of the image.
• Option C is not the best answer because it requires packaging the pickled model in a custom container image, which may increase the size and complexity of the image. It also does not leverage the Vertex built-in container image, which may provide some optimizations and integrations for XGBoost models.
• Option D is the best answer because it leverages the Vertex built-in container image, which may provide some optimizations and integrations for XGBoost models. It also allows storing the pickled model in Cloud Storage, which may reduce the size and complexity of the image. It also allows building a custom predictor class based on XGBoost Predictor from the Vertex AI SDK, which may simplify the data preprocessing step and the prediction logic.

 A cloud-based backend system is a system that runs on a cloud platform and provides services or resources to other applications or users. A cloud-based backend system can be used to submit training jobs, which are tasks that involve training a machine learning model on a given dataset using a specific framework and configuration1

However, a cloud-based backend system can also have some drawbacks, such as:

• High maintenance: A cloud-based backend system may require a lot of administration and management, such as provisioning, scaling, monitoring, and troubleshooting the cloud resources and services. This can be time-consuming and costly, and may distract from the core business objectives2
• Low flexibility: A cloud-based backend system may not support all the frameworks and libraries that the data scientists need to use for their training jobs. This can limit the choices and capabilities of the data scientists, and affect the quality and performance of their models3
• Poor integration: A cloud-based backend system may not integrate well with other cloud services or tools that the data scientists need to use for their machine learning workflows, such as data processing, model deployment, or model monitoring. This can create compatibility and interoperability issues, and reduce the efficiency and productivity of the data scientists.

Therefore, it may be better to use a managed service instead of a cloud-based backend system to submit training jobs. A managed service is a service that is provided and operated by a third-party provider, and offers various benefits, such as:

• Low maintenance: A managed service handles the administration and management of the cloud resources and services, and abstracts away the complexity and details of the underlying infrastructure. This can save time and money, and allow the data scientists to focus on their core tasks2
• High flexibility: A managed service can support multiple frameworks and libraries that the data scientists need to use for their training jobs, and allow them to customize and configure their training environments and parameters. This can enhance the choices and capabilities of the data scientists, and improve the quality and performance of their models3
• Easy integration: A managed service can integrate seamlessly with other cloud services or tools that the data scientists need to use for their machine learning workflows, and provide a unified and consistent interface and experience. This can solve the compatibility and interoperability issues, and increase the efficiency and productivity of the data scientists.

One of the best options for using a managed service to submit training jobs is to use the AI Platform custom containers feature to receive training jobs using any framework. AI Platform is a Google Cloud service that provides a platform for building, deploying, and managing machine learning models. AI Platform supports various machine learning frameworks, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, and XGBoost, and provides various features, such as hyperparameter tuning, distributed training, online prediction, and model monitoring.

The AI Platform custom containers feature allows the data scientists to use any framework or library that they want for their training jobs, and package their training application and dependencies as a Docker container image. The data scientists can then submit their training jobs to AI Platform, and specify the container image and the training parameters. AI Platform will run the training jobs on the cloud infrastructure, and handle the scaling, logging, and monitoring of the training jobs. The data scientists can also use the AI Platform features to optimize, deploy, and manage their models.

The other options are not as suitable or feasible. Configuring Kubeflow to run on Google Kubernetes Engine and receive training jobs through TFJob is not ideal, as Kubeflow is mainly designed for TensorFlow-based training jobs, and does not support other frameworks or libraries. Creating a library of VM images on Compute Engine and publishing these images on a centralized repository is not optimal, as Compute Engine is a low-level service that requires a lot of administration and management, and does not provide the features and integrations of AI Platform. Setting up Slurm workload manager to receive jobs that can be scheduled to run on your cloud infrastructure is not relevant, as Slurm is a tool for managing and scheduling jobs on a cluster of nodes, and does not provide a managed service for training jobs.

References: 1: Cloud computing 2: Managed services 3: Machine learning frameworks : [Machine learning workflow] : [AI Platform overview] : [Custom containers for training]

The best option for reducing the sensitivity of the dataset before training the model is to use the Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) API to scan for sensitive data, and use Dataflow with the DLP API to encrypt sensitive values with Format Preserving Encryption. This option allows you to keep every column in the dataset, while protecting the sensitive data from unauthorized access or exposure. The Cloud DLP API can detect and classify various types of sensitive data, such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, and more1. Dataflow can create scalable and reliable pipelines to process large volumes of data from BigQuery and other sources2. Format Preserving Encryption (FPE) is a technique that encrypts sensitive data while preserving its original format and length, which can help maintain the utility and validity of the data3. By using Dataflow with the DLP API, you can apply FPE to the sensitive values in the dataset, and store the encrypted data in BigQuery or another destination. You can also use the same pipeline to decrypt the data when needed, by using the same encryption key and method4.

The other options are not as suitable as option B, for the following reasons:

• Option A: Using Dataflow to ingest the columns with sensitive data from BigQuery, and then randomize the values in each sensitive column, would reduce the sensitivity of the data, but also the utility and accuracy of the data. Randomization is a technique that replaces sensitive data with random values, which can prevent re-identification of the data, but also distort the distribution and relationships of the data3. This can affect the performance and quality of the ML model, especially if every column is critical to the model.
• Option C: Using the Cloud DLP API to scan for sensitive data, and use Dataflow to replace all sensitive data by using the encryption algorithm AES-256 with a salt, would reduce the sensitivity of the data, but also the utility and validity of the data. AES-256 is a symmetric encryption algorithm that uses a 256-bit key to encrypt and decrypt data. A salt is a random value that is added to the data before encryption, to increase the randomness and security of the encrypted data. However, AES-256 does not preserve the format or length of the original data, which can cause problems when storing or processing the data. For example, if the original data is a 10-digit phone number, AES-256 would produce a much longer and different string, which can break the schema or logic of the dataset3.
• Option D: Before training, using BigQuery to select only the columns that do not contain sensitive data, and creating an authorized view of the data so that sensitive values cannot be accessed by unauthorized individuals, would reduce the exposure of the sensitive data, but also the completeness and relevance of the data. An authorized view is a BigQuery view that allows you to share query results with particular users or groups, without giving them access to the underlying tables. However, this option assumes that you can identify the columns that do not contain sensitive data, which may not be easy or accurate. Moreover, this option would remove some columns from the dataset, which can affect the performance and quality of the ML model, especially if every column is critical to the model.

References:

• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer, Course 5: Responsible AI, Week 2: Privacy
• Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer Exam Guide, Section 5: Developing responsible AI solutions, 5.2 Implementing privacy techniques
• Official Google Cloud Certified Professional Machine Learning Engineer Study Guide, Chapter 9: Responsible AI, Section 9.4: Privacy
• De-identification techniques
• Cloud Data Loss Prevention (DLP) API
• Dataflow
• Using Dataflow and Sensitive Data Protection to securely tokenize and import data from a relational database to BigQuery
• [AES encryption]
• [Salt (cryptography)]
• [Authorized views]

 A TPU VM is a virtual machine that has direct access to a Cloud TPU device. TPU VMs provide a simpler and more flexible way to use Cloud TPUs, as they eliminate the need for a separate host VM and network setup. TPU VMs also support interactive debugging tools such as TensorFlow Debugger (tfdbg) and Python Debugger (pdb), which can help researchers develop and troubleshoot complex models. A v3-8 TPU VM has 8 TPU cores, which can provide high performance and scalability for training large models. SSHing into the TPU VM allows the user to run and debug the TensorFlow code directly on the TPU device, without any network overhead or data transfer issues. References:

• 1: TPU VMs Overview
• 2: TPU VMs Quickstart
• 3: Debugging TensorFlow Models on Cloud TPUs

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “design, build, and productionalize ML models to solve business challenges using Google Cloud technologies”. The Vertex AI Vision Occupancy Analytics model2 is a specialized pre-built vision model that lets you count people or vehicles given specific inputs you add in video frames. It provides advanced features such as active zones counting, line crossing counting, and dwelling detection. This model is suitable for the use case of detecting the number of customers waiting for service in near real time. You can easily create and deploy an occupancy analytics application using Vertex AI Vision3. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Occupancy analytics guide
• Create an occupancy analytics app with BigQuery forecasting
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

• Option A is correct because importing the TensorFlow model with BigQuery ML, and running the ml.predict function is the easiest way to execute a batch prediction on a large BigQuery table with a custom TensorFlow model, and store the predicted results in another BigQuery table. BigQuery ML allows you to import TensorFlow models that are stored in Cloud Storage, and use them for prediction with SQL queries1. The ml.predict function returns a table with the predicted values, which can be saved to another BigQuery table2.
• Option B is incorrect because using the TensorFlow BigQuery reader to load the data, and using the BigQuery API to write the results to BigQuery requires more effort to build the inference pipeline than option A. The TensorFlow BigQuery reader is a way to read data from BigQuery into TensorFlow datasets, which can be used for training or prediction3. However, this option also requires writing code to load the TensorFlow model, run the prediction, and use the BigQuery API to write the results back to BigQuery4.
• Option C is incorrect because creating a Dataflow pipeline to convert the data in BigQuery to TFRecords, running a batch inference on Vertex AI Prediction, and writing the results to BigQuery requires more effort to build the inference pipeline than option A. Dataflow is a service for creating and running data processing pipelines, such as ETL (extract, transform, load) or batch processing5. Vertex AI Prediction is a service for deploying and serving ML models for online or batch prediction. However, this option also requires writing code to create the Dataflow pipeline, convert the data to TFRecords, run the batch inference, and write the results to BigQuery.
• Option D is incorrect because loading the TensorFlow SavedModel in a Dataflow pipeline, using the BigQuery I/O connector with a custom function to perform the inference within the pipeline, and writing the results to BigQuery requires more effort to build the inference pipeline than option A. The BigQuery I/O connector is a way to read and write data from BigQuery within a Dataflow pipeline. However, this option also requires writing code to load the TensorFlow SavedModel, create the custom function for inference, and write the results to BigQuery.

References:

• Importing models into BigQuery ML
• Using imported models for prediction
• TensorFlow BigQuery reader
• BigQuery API
• Dataflow overview
• [Vertex AI Prediction overview]
• [Batch prediction with Dataflow]
• [BigQuery I/O connector]
• [Using TensorFlow models in Dataflow]

Vertex AI is a unified platform for building and managing machine learning solutions on Google Cloud. It provides various services and tools for different stages of the machine learning lifecycle, such as data preparation, model training, deployment, monitoring, and experimentation. Vertex AI Workbench is an integrated development environment (IDE) that allows you to create and run Jupyter notebooks on Google Cloud. You can use Vertex AI Workbench to develop your ML model in Python, using libraries such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, etc. You can also use the Vertex SDK, which is a Python client library for Vertex AI, to track artifacts and compare models during experimentation. You can use the aiplatform.init function to initialize the Vertex SDK with the name of your experiment. You can use the aiplatform.start_run and aiplatform.end_run functions to create and close an experiment run. You can use the aiplatform.log_params and aiplatform.log_metrics functions to log the parameters and metrics for each experiment run. You can also use the aiplatform.log_datasets and aiplatform.log_model functions to attach the dataset and model artifacts as inputs and outputs to each experiment run. These functions allow you to record and store the metadata and artifacts of your experiments, and compare them using the Vertex AI Experiments UI. After a successful experiment, you can create a Vertex AI pipeline, which is a way to automate and orchestrate your ML workflows. You can use the aiplatform.PipelineJob class to create a pipeline job, and specify the components and dependencies of your pipeline. You can also use the aiplatform.CustomContainerTrainingJob class to create a custom container training job, and use the run method to run the job as a pipeline component. You can use the aiplatform.Model.deploy method to deploy your model as a pipeline component. You can also use the aiplatform.Model.monitor method to monitor your model as a pipeline component. By creating a Vertex AI pipeline, you can rapidly and easily transition successful experiments to production, and reuse and share your ML workflows. This solution requires minimal changes to your code, and leverages the Vertex AI services and tools to streamline your ML development process. References: The answer can be verified from official Google Cloud documentation and resources related to Vertex AI, Vertex AI Workbench, Vertex SDK, and Vertex AI pipelines.

• Vertex AI | Google Cloud
• Vertex AI Workbench | Google Cloud
• Vertex SDK for Python | Google Cloud
• Vertex AI pipelines | Google Cloud

The best option for building an ML model to predict customer purchase behavior in BigQuery ML is to use the transform clause with the ML.ONE_HOT_ENCODER function on the categorical features at model creation and select the categorical and non-categorical features. This option allows you to encode the categorical features as one-hot vectors, which are binary vectors that have only one non-zero element. One-hot encoding is a common technique for handling categorical features in ML models, as it can reduce the dimensionality and sparsity of the data, and avoid the ordinality problem that arises when using numerical labels for categorical values1. The transform clause is a feature of BigQuery ML that lets you apply SQL expressions to transform the input data at model creation time. The transform clause can perform feature engineering, such as one-hot encoding, on the fly, without requiring you to create and store a new table with the transformed data2. By using the transform clause with the ML.ONE_HOT_ENCODER function, you can create and train an ML model in BigQuery ML with a single SQL statement, and export it to Cloud Storage for online prediction.

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

• Option B: Using the ML.ONE_HOT_ENCODER function on the categorical features, and selecting the encoded categorical features and non-categorical features as inputs to create your model, would require more steps and storage than using the transform clause. The ML.ONE_HOT_ENCODER function is a BigQuery ML function that returns a one-hot encoded vector for a given categorical value. However, using this function alone would not apply the one-hot encoding to the input data at model creation time. You would need to create a new table with the encoded features, and use that table as the input to create your model. This would incur additional storage costs and reduce the performance of the queries.
• Option C: Using the create model statement and selecting the categorical and non-categorical features, would not handle the categorical features properly and could result in a poor model performance. The create model statement is a BigQuery ML statement that creates and trains an ML model from a SQL query. However, if the input data contains categorical features, you need to encode them as one-hot vectors or use the category_count option to specify the number of categories for each feature. Otherwise, BigQuery ML would treat the categorical features as numerical values, which can introduce bias and noise into the model3.
• Option D: Using the ML.ONE_HOT_ENCODER function on the categorical features, and selecting the encoded categorical features and non-categorical features as inputs to create your model, is the same as option B, and has the same drawbacks.

References:

• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer, Course 2: Data Engineering for ML on Google Cloud, Week 2: Feature Engineering
• Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer Exam Guide, Section 1: Architecting low-code ML solutions, 1.1 Developing ML models by using BigQuery ML
• Official Google Cloud Certified Professional Machine Learning Engineer Study Guide, Chapter 3: Data Engineering for ML, Section 3.2: BigQuery for ML
• One-hot encoding
• Using the TRANSFORM clause for feature engineering
• Creating a model
• ML.ONE_HOT_ENCODER function

Data leakage is a problem where information from outside the training dataset is used to create the model, resulting in an overly optimistic or invalid estimate of the model performance. Data leakage can occur in time series data when the temporal order of the data is not preserved during data preparation or model evaluation. For example, if the data is shuffled before splitting into train and test sets, or if future data is used to impute missing values in past data, then data leakage can occur.

One way to address data leakage in time series data is to apply nested cross-validation during model training. Nested cross-validation is a technique that allows you to perform both model selection and model evaluation in a robust way, while preserving the temporal order of the data. Nested cross-validation involves two levels of cross-validation: an inner loop for model selection and an outer loop for model evaluation. The inner loop splits the training data into k folds, trains and tunes the model on k-1 folds, and validates the model on the remaining fold. The inner loop repeats this process for each fold and selects the best model based on the validation performance. The outer loop splits the data into n folds, trains the best model from the inner loop on n-1 folds, and tests the model on the remaining fold. The outer loop repeats this process for each fold and evaluates the model performance based on the test results.

Nested cross-validation can help to avoid data leakage in time series data by ensuring that the model is trained and tested on non-overlapping data, and that the data used for validation is never seen by the model during training. Nested cross-validation can also provide a more reliable estimate of the model performance than a single train-test split or a simple cross-validation, as it reduces the variance and bias of the estimate.

References:

• Data Leakage in Machine Learning
• How to Avoid Data Leakage When Performing Data Preparation
• Classification on a single time series - prevent leakage between train and test

 This answer is correct because it allows AutoML Tables to handle the time signal in the data and split the data accordingly. This ensures that the model is trained on the historical data and evaluated on the more recent data, which is consistent with the prediction task. AutoML Tables can automatically detect and handle temporal features in the data, such as date, time, and duration. By specifying the Time column, AutoML Tables can also perform time-series forecasting and use the time signal to generate additional features, such as seasonality and trend. References:

• [AutoML Tables: Preparing your training data]
• [AutoML Tables: Time-series forecasting]

• Option A is correct because using local feature importance from the predictions is the best way to provide the reasons that contributed to the model’s decision for a specific customer’s loan request. Local feature importance is a measure of how much each feature affects the prediction for a given instance, relative to the average prediction for the dataset1. AutoML Tables provides local feature importance values for each prediction, which can be accessed using the Vertex AI SDK for Python or the Cloud Console2. By using local feature importance, you can explain why the model rejected the loan request based on the customer’s data.
• Option B is incorrect because using the correlation with target values in the data summary page is not a good way to provide the reasons that contributed to the model’s decision for a specific customer’s loan request. The correlation with target values is a measure of how much each feature is linearly related to the target variable for the entire dataset, not for a single instance3. The data summary page in AutoML Tables shows the correlation with target values for each feature, as well as other statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and histogram4. However, these statistics are not useful for explaining the model’s decision for a specific customer, as they do not account for the interactions between features or the non-linearity of the model.
• Option C is incorrect because using the feature importance percentages in the model evaluation page is not a good way to provide the reasons that contributed to the model’s decision for a specific customer’s loan request. The feature importance percentages are a measure of how much each feature affects the overall accuracy of the model for the entire dataset, not for a single instance5. The model evaluation page in AutoML Tables shows the feature importance percentages for each feature, as well as other metrics such as precision, recall, and confusion matrix. However, these metrics are not useful for explaining the model’s decision for a specific customer, as they do not reflect the individual contribution of each feature for a given prediction.
• Option D is incorrect because varying features independently to identify the threshold per feature that changes the classification is not a feasible way to provide the reasons that contributed to the model’s decision for a specific customer’s loan request. This method involves changing the value of one feature at a time, while keeping the other features constant, and observing how the prediction changes. However, this method is not practical, as it requires making multiple prediction requests, and may not capture the interactions between features or the non-linearity of the model.

References:

• Local feature importance
• Getting local feature importance values
• Correlation with target values
• Data summary page
• Feature importance percentages
• [Model evaluation page]
• [Varying features independently]

• Option A is incorrect because using latitude, longitude, and product type as features, and using profit as model output is not the best way to develop an ML model to predict the company’s profitability for a new line of naturally flavored bottled waters in different locations. This option does not capture the interaction between latitude and longitude, which may affect the profitability of the product. For example, the same product may have different profitability in different regions, depending on the climate, culture, or preferences of the customers. Moreover, this option does not account for the granularity of the location data, which may be too fine or too coarse for the model. For example, using the exact coordinates of a city may not be meaningful, as the profitability may vary within the city, or using the country name may not be informative, as the profitability may vary across the country.
• Option B is incorrect because using latitude, longitude, and product type as features, and using revenue and expenses as model outputs is not a suitable way to develop an ML model to predict the company’s profitability for a new line of naturally flavored bottled waters in different locations. This option has the same drawbacks as option A, as it does not capture the interaction between latitude and longitude, or account for the granularity of the location data. Moreover, this option does not directly predict the profitability of the product, which is the target variable of interest. Instead, it predicts the revenue and expenses of the product, which are intermediate variables that depend on other factors, such as the price, the cost, or the demand of the product. To obtain the profitability, we would need to subtract the expenses from the revenue, which may introduce errors or uncertainties in the prediction.
• Option C is correct because using product type and the feature cross of latitude with longitude, followed by binning, as features, and using profit as model output is a good way to develop an ML model to predict the company’s profitability for a new line of naturally flavored bottled waters in different locations. This option captures the interaction between latitude and longitude, which may affect the profitability of the product, by creating a feature cross of these two features. A feature cross is a synthetic feature that combines the values of two or more features into a single feature1. This option also accounts for the granularity of the location data, by binning the feature cross into discrete buckets. Binning is a technique that groups continuous values into intervals, which can reduce the noise and complexity of the data2. Moreover, this option directly predicts the profitability of the product, which is the target variable of interest, by using it as the model output.
• Option D is incorrect because using product type and the feature cross of latitude with longitude, followed by binning, as features, and using revenue and expenses as model outputs is not a valid way to develop an ML model to predict the company’s profitability for a new line of naturally flavored bottled waters in different locations. This option has the same advantages as option C, as it captures the interaction between latitude and longitude, and accounts for the granularity of the location data, by creating a feature cross and binning it. However, this option does not directly predict the profitability of the product, which is the target variable of interest, but rather predicts the revenue and expenses of the product, which are intermediate variables that depend on other factors, as explained in option B.

References:

• Feature cross
• Binning
• [Profitability]
• [Revenue and expenses]
• [Latitude and longitude]
• [Product type]

Vertex AI Model Monitoring is a service that allows you to monitor the performance and quality of your ML models in production. You can use Vertex AI Model Monitoring to detect changes in the input data distribution, the prediction output distribution, or the model accuracy over time. Training-serving skew detection is a feature of Vertex AI Model Monitoring that compares the statistics of the data used for training the model and the data used for serving the model. If there is a significant difference between the two data distributions, it indicates that the model might be outdated or inaccurate. By enabling training-serving skew detection for your model, you can detect model performance changes in production and trigger retraining or redeployment of your model as needed. This way, you can ensure that your model is always up-to-date and accurate, without moving your data to the cloud. References:

• Vertex AI Model Monitoring documentation
• Training-serving skew detection documentation
• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate

 Kubeflow is an open source platform for developing, orchestrating, deploying, and running scalable and portable machine learning workflows on Kubernetes. Kubeflow Pipelines is a component of Kubeflow that allows you to build and manage end-to-end machine learning pipelines using a graphical user interface or a Python-based domain-specific language (DSL). Kubeflow Pipelines can help you automate and orchestrate your machine learning workflows, and integrate with various Google Cloud services and tools1

One of the Google Cloud services that you can use with Kubeflow Pipelines is BigQuery, which is a serverless, scalable, and cost-effective data warehouse that allows you to run fast and complex queries on large-scale data. BigQuery can help you analyze and prepare your data for machine learning, and store and manage your machine learning models2

To execute a query against BigQuery as the first step in your Kubeflow pipeline, and use the results of that query as the input to the next step in your pipeline, the easiest way to do that is to use the BigQuery Query Component, which is a pre-built component that you can find in the Kubeflow Pipelines repository on GitHub. The BigQuery Query Component allows you to run a SQL query on BigQuery, and output the results as a table or a file. You can use the component’s URL to load the component into your pipeline, and specify the query and the output parameters. You can then use the output of the component as the input to the next step in your pipeline, such as a data processing or a model training step3

The other options are not as easy or feasible. Using the BigQuery console to execute your query and then save the query results into a new BigQuery table is not a good idea, as it does not integrate with your Kubeflow pipeline, and requires manual intervention and duplication of data. Writing a Python script that uses the BigQuery API to execute queries against BigQuery is not ideal, as it requires writing custom code and handling authentication and error handling. Using the Kubeflow Pipelines DSL to create a custom component that uses the Python BigQuery client library to execute queries is not optimal, as it requires creating and packaging a Docker container image for the component, and testing and debugging the component.

References: 1: Kubeflow Pipelines overview 2: BigQuery overview 3: BigQuery Query Component

Data Catalog is a fully managed and scalable metadata management service that allows you to quickly discover, manage, and understand your data in Google Cloud. You can use Data Catalog to search the BigQuery datasets by using keywords in the table description, as well as other metadata attributes such as table name, column name, labels, tags, and more. Data Catalog also provides a rich browsing experience that lets you explore the schema, preview the data, and access the BigQuery console directly from the Data Catalog UI. Data Catalog helps you find the data that you need for your model building on AI Platform without writing any code or queries.

References:

• [Data Catalog documentation]
• [Data Catalog overview]
• [Searching for data assets]

 Deploying a model to an endpoint in Vertex AI associates physical resources with the model so it can serve online predictions with low latency1. By configuring the model deployment settings to use an n1-standard-4 machine type and setting the minReplicaCount value to 1 and the maxReplicaCount value to 8, you can ensure that the model scales according to the traffic, thereby minimizing latency and cost1. The n1-standard-4 machine type provides a balance between computing power and cost, and the dynamic scaling allows the model to handle higher traffic during nights and weekends without incurring unnecessary costs during off-peak times

According to the web search results, BigQuery ML1 is a service that allows you to create and execute machine learning models in BigQuery using SQL queries. BigQuery ML supports various types of models, such as linear regression, logistic regression, k-means clustering, matrix factorization, deep neural networks, and time series forecasting1. ARIMA_PLUS2 is a statistical model for time series forecasting that is built in to BigQuery ML. ARIMA_PLUS stands for AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average with eXogenous regressors. ARIMA_PLUS models the relationship between a target variable and its past values, as well as other external factors that might influence the target variable. ARIMA_PLUS can handle multiple time series, seasonality, holidays, and missing values2. Therefore, option C is the best way to use a solution that can be implemented quickly with minimal effort for the given use case, as it allows you to use SQL queries to build and run a forecasting model in BigQuery without moving the data or writing custom code. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• BigQuery ML
• ARIMA_PLUS
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “track the lineage of pipeline artifacts”. Vertex AI Experiments2 is a service that allows you to track and compare the results of your model training runs. Vertex AI Experiments automatically logs metadata such as hyperparameters, metrics, and artifacts for each training run. You can use Vertex AI Experiments to train your custom model using TensorFlow, PyTorch, XGBoost, or scikit-learn. Vertex AI Model Registry3 is a service that allows you to manage your trained models in a central location. You can use Vertex AI Model Registry to register your model, add labels and descriptions, and view the model’s lineage graph. The lineage graph shows the artifacts and executions that are part of the model’s creation, such as the dataset, the training pipeline, and the evaluation metrics. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Vertex AI Experiments
• Vertex AI Model Registry
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

Oscillation in the loss during batch training of a neural network means that the model is overshooting the optimal point of the loss function and bouncing back and forth. This can prevent the model from converging to the minimum loss value. One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is that the learning rate hyperparameter, which controls the size of the steps that the model takes along the gradient, is too high. Therefore, decreasing the learning rate hyperparameter can help the model take smaller and more precise steps and avoid oscillation. This is a common technique to improve the stability and performance of neural network training12.

References:

• Interpreting Loss Curves
• Is learning rate the only reason for training loss oscillation after few epochs?

Vertex Explainable AI is a set of tools and frameworks to help you understand and interpret predictions made by your machine learning models, natively integrated with a number of Google’s products and services1. With Vertex Explainable AI, you can generate feature-based explanations that show how much each input feature contributed to the model’s prediction2. This can help you debug and improve your model performance, and build confidence in your model’s behavior. Feature-based explanations are supported for custom image classification models deployed on Vertex AI Prediction3. References:

• Explainable AI | Google Cloud
• Introduction to Vertex Explainable AI | Vertex AI | Google Cloud
• Supported model types for feature-based explanations | Vertex AI | Google Cloud

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “design, build, and productionalize ML models to solve business challenges using Google Cloud technologies”. Dataflow2 is a fully managed, fast, and easy-to-use service for running Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop clusters on Google Cloud. Dataflow supports both batch and streaming data processing pipelines. However, if your use case requires real-time inference, you need to ensure that the data preprocessing logic is applied consistently between training and serving. One way to achieve this is to refactor the transformation code in the batch data pipeline so that it can be used outside of the pipeline, and use the same code in the endpoint. This way, you can avoid data skew and drift issues that might arise from using different preprocessing methods for training and serving. Therefore, option B is the best way to ensure the data preprocessing logic is applied consistently between training and serving. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Dataflow
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

The option A is the most suitable solution for logging data and tracking artifacts from each run of a model development experiment in a Vertex AI Workbench notebook. Vertex AI Workbench is a service that allows you to create and run interactive notebooks on Google Cloud. You can use Vertex AI Workbench to experiment with different preprocessing and modeling approaches for your time series prediction problem. You can also use the Vertex AI TensorBoard instance and the Vertex AI SDK to create an experiment and associate the TensorBoard instance. TensorBoard is a tool that allows you to visualize and monitor the metrics and artifacts of your ML experiments. You can use the Vertex AI SDK to create an experiment object, which is a logical grouping of runs that share a common objective. You can also use the Vertex AI SDK to associate the experiment object with a TensorBoard instance, which is a managed service that hosts a TensorBoard web app. By using the Vertex AI TensorBoard instance and the Vertex AI SDK, you can easily set up and manage your experiments, and access the TensorBoard web app from the Vertex AI console. You can also use the log_time_series_metrics function and the log_metrics function to log data and track artifacts from each run. The log_time_series_metrics function is a function that allows you to log the time series data, such as the multivariate time series and the labels, to the TensorBoard instance. The log_metrics function is a function that allows you to log the scalar metrics, such as the loss values, to the TensorBoard instance. By using these functions, you can record the data and artifacts from each run of your experiment, and compare them in the TensorBoard web app. You can also use the TensorBoard web app to visualize the data and artifacts, such as the time series plots, the scalar charts, the histograms, and the distributions. By using the Vertex AI TensorBoard instance, the Vertex AI SDK, and the log functions, you can log data and track artifacts from each run of your experiment in a Vertex AI Workbench notebook. References:

• Vertex AI Workbench documentation
• Vertex AI TensorBoard documentation
• Vertex AI SDK documentation
• log_time_series_metrics function documentation
• log_metrics function documentation
• [Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate]

TFRecords are a binary file format that can store large amounts of data efficiently. By converting the images to TFRecords and storing them in a Cloud Storage bucket, you can reduce the data size and improve the data transfer speed. You can then read the TFRecords by using the tf.data.TFRecordDataset function, which creates a dataset of tensors from the TFRecord files. This way, you can read images at scale during training while minimizing data I/O bottlenecks. References:

• TFRecord documentation
• tf.data.TFRecordDataset documentation
• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate

TFRecord is a binary file format that stores your data as a sequence of binary strings1. TFRecord files are efficient, scalable, and easy to process1. Sharding is a technique that splits a large file into smaller files, which can improve parallelism and performance2. Dataflow is a service that allows you to create and run data processing pipelines on Google Cloud3. Dataflow can create sharded TFRecord files from your images in a Cloud Storage directory4.

tf.data.TFRecordDataset is a class that allows you to read and parse TFRecord files in TensorFlow. You can use this class to create a tf.data.Dataset object that represents your input data for training. tf.data.Dataset is a high-level API that provides various methods to transform, batch, shuffle, and prefetch your data.

Vertex AI Training is a service that allows you to train your custom models on Google Cloud using various hardware accelerators, such as GPUs. Vertex AI Training supports TensorFlow models and can read data from Cloud Storage. You can use Vertex AI Training to train your image classification model by using a V100 GPU, which is a powerful and fast GPU for deep learning.

References:

• TFRecord and tf.Example | TensorFlow Core
• Sharding | TensorFlow Core
• Dataflow | Google Cloud
• Creating sharded TFRecord files | Google Cloud
• [tf.data.TFRecordDataset | TensorFlow Core v2.6.0]
• [tf.data: Build TensorFlow input pipelines | TensorFlow Core]
• [Vertex AI Training | Google Cloud]
• [NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPU | NVIDIA]

Vertex AI is a unified platform for building and managing machine learning solutions on Google Cloud. It provides a managed service for training custom models with various frameworks, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn, and XGBoost. To train your PyTorch model with Vertex AI, you need to package your code with Setuptools, which is a Python tool for creating and distributing packages. You also need to use a pre-built container, which is a Docker image that contains the dependencies and libraries for your framework. You can choose from a list of pre-built containers provided by Google, or create your own custom container. By using a pre-built container, you can avoid the hassle of installing and configuring the environment for your model. You can also specify a custom tier for your training job, which allows you to select the number and type of GPUs you want to use. You can choose from various GPU options, such as V100, P100, K80, and T4. By using 4 V100 GPUs, you can leverage the high performance and memory capacity of these accelerators to train your model faster and cheaper than using CPUs. This solution requires minimal changes to your code and can scale your training workload efficiently. References:

• Vertex AI | Google Cloud
• Custom training with pre-built containers | Vertex AI
• [Using GPUs | Vertex AI]

 A predict request is a way to send data to a trained model and get predictions in return. A predict request can be written in different formats, such as JSON, protobuf, or gRPC, depending on the service and the platform that are used to host and serve the model. A predict request usually contains the following information:

• The signature name: This is the name of the signature that defines the inputs and outputs of the model. A signature is a way to specify the expected format, type, and shape of the data that the model can accept and produce. A signature can be specified when exporting or saving the model, or it can be automatically inferred by the service or the platform. A model can have multiple signatures, but only one can be used for each predict request.
• The instances: This is the data that is sent to the model for prediction. The instances can be a single instance or a batch of instances, depending on the size and shape of the data. The instances should match the input specification of the signature, such as the number, name, and type of the input tensors.

For the use case of training a text classification model, the correct way to write the predict request is D. data = json.dumps({“signature_name”: “serving_default”, “instances”: [[‘a’, ‘b’], [‘c’, ‘d’], [‘e’, ‘f’]]})

This option involves writing the predict request in JSON format, which is a common and convenient format for sending and receiving data over the web. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, and it is a way to represent data as a collection of name-value pairs or an ordered list of values. JSON can be easily converted to and from Python objects using the json module.

This option also involves using the signature name “serving_default”, which is the default signature name that is assigned to the model when it is saved or exported without specifying a custom signature name. The serving_default signature defines the input and output tensors of the model based on the SignatureDef that is shown in the image. According to the SignatureDef, the model expects an input tensor called “text” that has a shape of (-1, 2) and a type of DT_STRING, and produces an output tensor called “softmax” that has a shape of (-1, 2) and a type of DT_FLOAT. The -1 in the shape indicates that the dimension can vary depending on the number of instances, and the 2 indicates that the dimension is fixed at 2. The DT_STRING and DT_FLOAT indicate that the data type is string and float, respectively.

This option also involves sending a batch of three instances to the model for prediction. Each instance is a list of two strings, such as [‘a’, ‘b’], [‘c’, ‘d’], or [‘e’, ‘f’]. These instances match the input specification of the signature, as they have a shape of (3, 2) and a type of string. The model will process these instances and produce a batch of three predictions, each with a softmax output that has a shape of (1, 2) and a type of float. The softmax output is a probability distribution over the two possible classes that the model can predict, such as positive or negative sentiment.

Therefore, writing the predict request as data = json.dumps({“signature_name”: “serving_default”, “instances”: [[‘a’, ‘b’], [‘c’, ‘d’], [‘e’, ‘f’]]}) is the correct and valid way to send data to the text classification model and get predictions in return.

References:

• [json — JSON encoder and decoder]

 BigQuery is a service that allows you to store and query large amounts of data in a scalable and cost-effective way. You can use BigQuery to build a model that predicts customer lifetime value over the next three years, by using the create model statement. The create model statement is a SQL command that allows you to create and train an ML model using your data in BigQuery. You can use the create model statement to create an AutoML model, which is a type of model that automatically selects the best features and architecture for your data. By using an AutoML model, you can use the simplest approach to build the model, without writing any code or performing any feature engineering. You can also use the ml.evaluate and ml.predict statements to validate the results of your model. The ml.evaluate statement is a SQL command that allows you to evaluate the performance and quality of your model using various metrics. The ml.predict statement is a SQL command that allows you to make predictions using your model and new data. You can also use the BigQuery console to access visualization tools, such as charts and graphs, to explore and analyze your data and model results. By using the BigQuery console, the create model statement, and the ml.evaluate and ml.predict statements, you can build and validate a model that predicts customer lifetime value over the next three years, and have access to visualization tools. References:

• BigQuery documentation
• create model statement documentation
• ml.evaluate statement documentation
• ml.predict statement documentation
• Preparing for Google Cloud Certification: Machine Learning Engineer Professional Certificate

According to the official exam guide1, one of the skills assessed in the exam is to “explain the predictions of a trained model”. Vertex AI provides feature attributions using Shapley Values, a cooperative game theory algorithm that assigns credit to each feature in a model for a particular outcome2. Feature attributions can help you understand how the model calculates the predictions and debug or optimize the model accordingly. You can use AutoML for Tabular Data to generate and query local feature attributions3. The other options are not relevant or optimal for this scenario. References:

• Professional ML Engineer Exam Guide
• Feature attributions for classification and regression
• AutoML for Tabular Data
• Google Professional Machine Learning Certification Exam 2023
• Latest Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer Actual Free Exam Questions

• Option A is incorrect because training a time-series model to predict the machines’ performance values, and configuring an alert if a machine’s actual performance values significantly differ from the predicted performance values, is not the best way to build a predictive maintenance solution that uses monitoring data from the VMs to detect potential failures and then alerts the service desk team. This option assumes that the performance values follow a predictable pattern, which may not be the case for complex systems. Moreover, this option does not use any historical incident data, which may contain useful information for identifying failures. Furthermore, this option does not involve any model evaluation or validation, which are essential steps for ensuring the quality and reliability of the model.
• Option B is correct because implementing a simple heuristic (e.g., based on z-score) to label the machines’ historical performance data, and training a model to predict anomalies based on this labeled dataset, is a reasonable way to build a predictive maintenance solution that uses monitoring data from the VMs to detect potential failures and then alerts the service desk team. This option uses a simple and fast method to label the historical performance data, which is necessary for supervised learning. A z-score is a measure of how many standard deviations a value is away from the mean of a distribution1. By using a z-score, we can label the performance values that are unusually high or low as anomalies, which may indicate failures. Then, we can train a model to learn the patterns of normal and anomalous performance values, and use it to predict anomalies on new data. We can also evaluate and validate the model using metrics such as precision, recall, or F1-score, and compare it with other models or methods.
• Option C is incorrect because developing a simple heuristic (e.g., based on z-score) to label the machines’ historical performance data, and testing this heuristic in a production environment, is not a safe way to build a predictive maintenance solution that uses monitoring data from the VMs to detect potential failures and then alerts the service desk team. This option does not involve any model training or evaluation, which are essential steps for ensuring the quality and reliability of the solution. Moreover, this option does not test the heuristic on a separate dataset, such as a validation or test set, before deploying it to production, which may lead to errors or failures in the production environment.
• Option D is incorrect because hiring a team of qualified analysts to review and label the machines’ historical performance data, and training a model based on this manually labeled dataset, is not a feasible way to build a predictive maintenance solution that uses monitoring data from the VMs to detect potential failures and then alerts the service desk team. This option may produce high-quality labels, but it is also costly, time-consuming, and prone to human errors or biases. Moreover, this option may not scale well with large or complex datasets, which may require more analysts or more time to label.

References:

• Z-score
• [Predictive maintenance]
• [Anomaly detection]
• [Time-series analysis]
• [Model evaluation]

• Option A is incorrect because converting each categorical value into an integer value is not a good way to encode categorical values with high cardinality. This method implies an ordinal relationship between the categories, which may not be true. For example, assigning the values 1, 2, and 3 to the categories “red”, “green”, and “blue” does not make sense, as there is no inherent order among these colors1.
• Option B is correct because converting the categorical string data to one-hot hash buckets is a suitable way to encode categorical values with high cardinality. This method uses a hash function to map each category to a fixed-length vector of binary values, where only one element is 1 and the rest are 0. This method preserves the sparsity and independence of the categories, and reduces the dimensionality of the input space2.
• Option C is incorrect because mapping the categorical variables into a vector of boolean values is not a valid way to encode categorical values with high cardinality. This method implies that each category can be represented by a combination of true/false values, which may not be possible for a large number of categories. For example, if there are 10,000 categories, then there are 2^10,000 possible combinations of boolean values, which is impractical to store and process3.
• Option D is incorrect because converting each categorical value into a run-length encoded string is not a useful way to encode categorical values with high cardinality. This method compresses a string by replacing consecutive repeated characters with the character and the number of repetitions. For example, “AAAABBBCC” becomes “A4B3C2”. This method does not reduce the dimensionality of the input space, and does not preserve the semantic meaning of the categories4.

References:

• Encoding categorical features
• One-hot hash buckets
• Boolean vector
• Run-length encoding

Z-score normalization is a technique that transforms the values of a numeric variable into standardized units, such that the mean is zero and the standard deviation is one. Z-score normalization can help to compare variables with different scales and ranges, and to reduce the effect of outliers and skewness. The formula for z-score normalization is:

z = (x - mu) / sigma

where x is the original value, mu is the mean of the variable, and sigma is the standard deviation of the variable.

Dataflow is a service that allows you to create and run data processing pipelines on Google Cloud. You can use Dataflow to preprocess raw data prior to model training and prediction, such as applying z-score normalization on data stored in BigQuery. However, using Dataflow for this task may not be the most efficient option, as it involves reading and writing data from and to BigQuery, which can be time-consuming and costly. Moreover, using Dataflow requires manual intervention to update the pipeline whenever new training data is added.

A more efficient way to perform z-score normalization on data stored in BigQuery is to translate the normalization algorithm into SQL and use it with BigQuery. BigQuery is a service that allows you to analyze large-scale and complex data using SQL queries. You can use BigQuery to perform z-score normalization on your data using SQL functions such as AVG(), STDDEV_POP(), and OVER(). For example, the following SQL query can normalize the values of a column called temperature in a table called weather:

SELECT (temperature - AVG(temperature) OVER ()) / STDDEV_POP(temperature) OVER () AS normalized_temperature FROM weather;

By using SQL to perform z-score normalization on BigQuery, you can make the process more efficient by minimizing computation time and manual intervention. You can also leverage the scalability and performance of BigQuery to handle large and complex datasets. Therefore, translating the normalization algorithm into SQL for use with BigQuery is the best option for this use case.