Feature Store Service for Consistent ML Data Curation

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Solution Overview

Problem

Clients face a significant burden in building and training machine learning (ML) models due to the high density and complexity of data, requiring tedious transformations and inconsistent data usage between training and real-time inferences, which slows down development and leads to unpredictable model behavior.

Innovation Solution

A feature store service within a service provider network that offers a fully managed data store for securely storing, discovering, retrieving, and sharing curated data, allowing clients to create and manage feature groups for efficient ML model development, with online and offline data stores for low-latency real-time inferences and batch processing.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Manufacturing precision

If clients perform manual data transformation and curation for each ML model, then data can be prepared for training, but development time and effort increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata curation qualityVSAvoiddevelopment time
Core Design Contradiction:
Manufacturing precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The feature store pre-processes and curates data in advance by capturing event data from data sources, processing it through transformation pipelines, and storing processed features before they are needed for model training. This preliminary action eliminates the need for manual data transformation at model development time, resolving the contradiction between data quality and development speed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements self-service data curation where the feature store automatically captures, processes, and manages features without requiring manual intervention for each ML model. The automated pipelines continuously update features, allowing clients to directly use pre-curated data, thus maintaining high data quality while eliminating time-consuming manual processes.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

2Adaptability or versatility

If clients use different data processing methods for training and real-time inference, then flexibility is maintained, but model behavior becomes unpredictable

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveprocessing flexibilityVSAvoidmodel behavior consistency
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The feature store serves as a universal data repository that provides the same curated features to both model training and real-time inference workloads. By maintaining a single source of truth for all features with consistent processing logic, the system ensures that the same data transformations are applied across different use cases, guaranteeing model behavior consistency while still allowing flexibility in how features are consumed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

The system implements feedback mechanisms where features are continuously updated and versioned, allowing clients to track changes and ensure consistency between training and inference. The feature store maintains feature provenance and transformation history, providing feedback loops that ensure the same processing logic is applied across different model deployment stages.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #23Feedback

3Quantity of substance

If clients store all historical data for batch processing, then complete data availability is achieved, but data access latency increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata availabilityVSAvoiddata access speed
Core Design Contradiction:
Quantity of substanceVSSpeed

Solution Approach 1:

The feature store segments data into different storage layers: hot storage for frequently accessed recent features, warm storage for historical data, and cold storage for archival data. This segmentation allows the system to maintain complete data availability across all time ranges while providing fast access to recently updated features that are most commonly needed for real-time inference, thus resolving the contradiction between data quantity and access speed.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Data Source

PatentUS11704299B1Fully managed repository to create, version, and share curated data for machine learning development
Publication Date: 2023.07.18 AMAZON TECH INC
  • US11704299B1 patent drawing
  • US11704299B1 patent drawing
  • US11704299B1 patent drawing

AI summary

Techniques and technologies for providing a fully managed datastore for clients to securely store, discover, retrieve, remove, and share curated data, or features, to develop machine learning (ML) models in an efficient manner. The feature store service may provide clients with the ability to create and store feature groups that include features and associated metadata providing clients with a quick understanding of features so that they may determine which features are suitable for training ML models and/or use with ML models. The feature store service may provide first a data store configured to store the most recent values associated with a feature group, such that client can access the features and utilize ML models to make real-time predictions with low latency and high throughput, and a second datastore configured to store historical values associated with a feature group, such that a client can utilize the features to train ML models.