ONNX for exchanging Machine Learning Models
When working on build predictive application using machine learning algorithms, you will probably be working with such languages as Python, R, PyTorch, TensorFlow, and lots of other frameworks. One of the challenges we face is taking these machine learning models from our test/lab environment and putting into production them. By this I mean integrating them with our production systems to allow real-time use of these ML models. This is not a topic that is discussed very often. Many of the most common languages and frameworks are very easy to use for machine learning, but running them in production can be slow. This can lead to lots of problems and can regularly label machine learning projects as a failure. None of use want that. Sometime people look are re-coding all the machine learning models in other languages such as C or Java or Julia, as these are noted for the high speed and scalability in production environments. (Remember many of the common ML languages and frameworks are actually developed using C and Java.)
To remove the need to recode your models, many of the languages, frameworks and tools have opened to the ability to allow model interchange. This approach allows you to use the tools that work best for you, in your environment and your company, to develop, test and evaluate machine learning models. These can then be packaged up and shared with other languages, frameworks or tools suitable for production environments, eliminating or significantly reducing the need for large coding projects and allows for quicker time to deployment.
There are many machine learning model interchange frameworks available. Historically PMML was popular but with the rise of other machine learning and deep learning algorithms, it seems to have lost the popularity contest. One of the more popular machine learning interchange frameworks is called ONNX. This has been growing in popularity with a wide body of languages, tools and vendors.
ONNX stands for the Open Neural Network eXchange and is designed to allow developers to easily move between different machine learning and deep learning frameworks. This allows the easy migration from research and model development environments, to other environments more suited to deployment, allowing for faster scoring of data. ONNX allows for the migration of the model with the minimum of recoding. ONNX generates or provides for an extensible computation dataflow graph model, with built-in operators and data types focused on interencing.
To use ONNX with Python install the library:
pip3 install onnx-mxnetThe following is an extract of sample code generating a model, converting it to ONNX format and saving it to file.
#train a model
#load sklearn
from sklearn.datasets import load_iris
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
#load the IRIS sample data set
iris = load_iris()
X, y = iris.data, iris.target
#create the train and test data sets
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y)
#define and create Random Forest data set
rf = RandomForestClassifier()
rf.fit(X_train, y_train)
#convert into ONNX format & save to file
from skl2onnx import convert_sklearn
from skl2onnx.common.data_types import FloatTensorType
initial_type = [('float_input', FloatTensorType([None, 4]))]
#covert to ONNX
onx = convert_sklearn(rf, initial_types=initial_type)
#save to file
with open("rf_iris.onnx", "wb") as f:
f.write(onx.SerializeToString())The above example illustrates converting a sklearn model. For algorithms and models, converters exist and are available in the ONNX Github
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