Three Key Steps to Prepare IT for Machine Learning https://www.liaison.com/blog/2018/04/11/three-key-steps-prepare-machi...

Three Key Steps to Prepare IT for Machine Learning

By Sampa Choudhuri

The Internet of Things (IoT), mobile applications, social media, and more powerful enterprise systems are generating data at
unprecedented scale, speed, and variety. To derive business value out of all these data, more and more enterprises are turning to
machine learning. For instance, according to a study conducted by McKinsey Global Institute, the total investment in Artificial
Intelligence (AI) was between $8 to $12 billion in 2016 alone, with machine learning constituting nearly 60% of the investment.

More than analyzing data, machine learning is a data-centric system that has the ability to learn, improve, or evolve without
human intervention. It is also a system that generates new insights from data without the need for external programming.
Because of these capabilities, machine learning enables enterprises to quickly and efficiently review, interpret, and analyze data
leading to business insights and competitive advantages.

Some of the benefits that machine learning delivers to enterprise include faster decision making, processing and analyzing large
volumes of data; greater analytical accuracy; and generating better overall business insights.

More specifically, machine learning can aid enterprises in improving customer experience and relationships by providing
personalized recommendations based on their behavior and past purchases, lengthening the life of their assets through
predictive maintenance, enabling greater security through smarter threat detection, and optimizing DevOps by improving key
areas of the application delivery life cycle.

Enabling machine learning for enterprises often falls on their respective IT departments. With the capabilities, benefits, and
competitive advantages that machine learning offers, how can IT departments prepare for it? In this post, we will explore the
three key steps in preparing enterprises for machine learning:

Step #1: Understand the Machine Learning Process

Understanding how the machine learning process works is key to preparing enterprises for machine learning. The required
architecture and personnel depend on how the process works. While the key stages of the machine learning process are
essentially the same for each enterprise, enterprises often differ in the problems they want to solve through machine learning.
This can have an effect on the type of architecture they need to build and the personnel they need to have. This process often
involves three stages:

Identifying the problem

The machine learning process often starts with identifying the problem and use case. By identifying the problem, the objective of
machine learning becomes clear for the enterprises and their IT departments, especially when it comes to creating their strategy
for implementing machine learning.

Gathering and processing data

After identifying the problem, IT departments need to identify the data sources from which they can acquire information to solve
the problem. Data sources can be enterprise systems such as CRM and ERP systems, IoT devices, or legacy systems. They can
also come from structured sources such as databases and unstructured sources such as documents, pictures and emails.

Once data sources are identified, IT departments must process and normalize data in order to utilize them for machine learning
execution. Processing these data involves data integration, cleansing, and transformation.

Development and deployment

After gathering and normalizing the necessary data for machine learning execution, IT departments must create a machine
learning model. They can create the model by developing the algorithms that will be used by machine learning programs to learn
and solve the identified problems. Once the algorithms are developed, they are run by the IT departments and the results of
every cycle are analyzed and validated. Based on the cycle runs of the machine learning model, the algorithms are fine-tuned to
achieve the desired results.

Finally, once the desired results are consistently achieved by the machine learning model, it can finally be deployed. Once
deployed, enterprises can finally reap the benefits of machine learning such as faster decision making, smarter insights, and
more accurate predictions.

Step #2: Build the Machine Learning Architecture

IT departments can now identify the key functions for which they need to build the architecture in order to execute the machine
learning process:

Data gathering

The first component of the machine learning architecture should enable it to collect data from different sources such as
databases, enterprise systems, mainframes, and even IoT devices. It should ensure the fast and reliable ingest of data from their
sources to continuously feed the machine learning model with inputs.

This component often requires the utilization of 1) batch data warehouses that are able to store and forward massive amounts of

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data and 2) real-time data ingestion tools that are able to filter necessary versus unnecessary data and the data needed for
immediate processing versus data that can be stored for later use.

Data integration

The second component of the architecture prepares the data ingested for integration and, ultimately, for machine learning
execution. This component often includes modules for transforming, cleaning, and normalizing data.

Enterprises need to consider whether the data to be processed or integrated are in transit or at rest and whether the data are
stored in legacy systems or in the cloud. These considerations will affect the tools and the features needed for the architecture.
For instance, in-memory processing may be best suited for the high-throughput computing required by the continuous
processing and integration of data. Integration platform-as-a-service (IPaaS) tools may suffice for the integration of data stored
in cloud applications, but not for those stored in legacy systems.

Tools that are able to support self-service integration of data are ideal for the second component of the machine learning
architecture. The tools must also be able to aid IT departments and enterprises with data governance and ensuring the security
and privacy of data.

Data modeling

The third component of the architecture enables enterprises to select algorithms and adapt them to address the problems they
need to solve. These algorithms are not necessarily built from scratch by IT departments. Algorithms can be obtained from the
market and customized for the needs of each enterprise. These algorithms which are available in the market can provide IT
departments with the necessary experience in handling machine learning projects, developing machine learning models, and
later deploying them in actual machine learning models.

Execution

After preparing the data and modeling machine learning algorithms to solve the pre-identified problems, the fourth component
of the architecture should be able to execute machine learning routines. This component of the architecture repeatedly runs
machine learning routines in order to test, validate, and fine-tune the models until they can consistently deliver the desired
outcomes.

A key consideration for this component is the processing capabilities needed to effectively run machine learning routines. These
capabilities can be obtained by building in-house infrastructures or as-a-service solutions from cloud providers. For instance,
simple machine learning algorithms can be executed using an average CPU. However, machine learning algorithms which can
perform deep learning often require higher computing power and even higher-powered graphics processing units (GPUs). Some
cloud providers are already offering services that utilize their own GPUs, thus saving enterprises from the cost of building their
own capabilities in-house.

Cloud services also provide enterprises with an ideal set up for testing, debugging, and optimizing machine learning models prior
to deployment or production. Machine learning algorithms may yield nondeterministic results especially at the beginning.
Testing and refining machine learning models require significant capacity and computing power which may disrupt normal
enterprise operations. Cloud services enable enterprises to not take computing capacity away from their day-to-day operations
while being able to test machine learning models without reservations.

Deployment

Finally, the fifth component of the machine learning architecture should enable enterprises to utilize the results of the machine
learning process in their own enterprise systems, applications, and data stores. Like the output of other enterprise software or
applications, the output of the machine learning process often takes the form of a report. This report can be business intelligence
that aids in decision making or information that can be used in other enterprise systems. Some outputs can also take the form of
another model that supports other data analytics applications for even better insights.

The fifth component of the machine learning architecture involves software or processes that deploys machine learning
experiments from the fourth component into production — that is, into existing enterprise applications and data stores. These
software or processes can be purchased from vendors or developers or even as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products.

Step #3: Acquire the Necessary Skills

The third and final step in preparing enterprises for machine learning is acquiring the necessary skills to execute it. Two of the
key skills required to execute machine learning are:

Data engineering

Machine learning depends heavily on data. Data engineering skills ensure the quality and integrity of data from acquisition to
transformation to execution and deployment. Data engineering also ensures that the movement of data across the machine
learning architecture is seamless. Data engineering also involves the programming skills needed for operationalizing or
deploying machine learning applications. These programming skills typically includes programming languages such as Python,
Java, R, and matrix laboratory.

Data science

Aside from data engineering, data science is also required for the integration and modeling stages of the machine learning
process. Data scientists and data stewards will need to have the expertise in managing integration architecture and platforms in
order to cleanse, transform, process and deploy data.

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Data Integration is at the Heart of Machine Learning

The process, the ideal architecture, and the required skills to prepare for and execute machine learning all revolve around data.
This means that the seamless integration of data is a key step to the successful implementation of machine learning.

For many enterprises, implementing machine learning can be a complex and tedious undertaking. But by focusing first on data
integration, it will be easier to embrace machine learning and unlock its benefits. Liaison’s ALLOY® platform connects, cleanses,
harmonizes, enriches, and secures data coming from various sources so that enterprises can do just that.

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