Model Monitoring

Model Monitoring is the process of tracking and evaluating the performance of machine learning models over time. It checks the stability, accuracy, and effectiveness of models to ensure they continue to provide valid predictions. As a core part of machine learning operations (MLOps), it helps in maintaining the quality and reliability of automated systems.

How Model Monitoring works

Model monitoring works by consistently checking and assessing machine learning models in production. It involves the following procedures:

1. Data Drift Monitoring: It checks whether the statistical properties of the model's input data change over time (data drift). In this case, if the input data significantly drift from the training data, the model's predictions may become less accurate.
2. Performance Monitoring: It keeps track of the model's performance metrics like accuracy, precision, recall, etc. It helps in understanding whether the model's performance is degrading over time.
3. Outcome Monitoring: It monitors the outputs generated by the model against actual results. This allows us to identify when the model's predictions start deviating significantly from actual outcomes.
4. Anomaly Detection: Unusual events or anomalies in the model’s behavior are flagged for further investigation.

When any of these monitoring checks indicate a significant deviation or degradation in performance, an alert is usually generated. This helps data science teams take corrective action like retraining the model with fresh data, tuning hyperparameters, or even rebuilding the model from scratch with a new modeling approach. In this way, model monitoring helps in maintaining the health, accuracy, and reliability of predictive models in production.