Model Development at Scale
In this course, you will learn to design and implement machine learning workflows that scale from a single machine to distributed compute on Databricks. The curriculum is organized into three modules: foundations of model development (when and why to distribute, and how Spark executes work), scalable model development with Spark ML and MLflow, and distributed model training with Ray and PyTorch — closing with a framework for choosing the right tool for a given workload.
Through hands-on demos and labs, you will build distributed Spark ML pipelines using Transformers, Estimators, and the fit/transform paradigm; scale existing pandas code with the Pandas API on Spark; and track, compare, and govern experiments with MLflow 3 and Unity Catalog. You will then train models across a cluster with Ray Train and PyTorch (TorchDistributor and DeepSpeed), and learn to match each workload to the right framework based on data size, model size, hardware, and cost.
The course concludes with a capstone that takes a problem end to end — engineering features, training a model at scale, tracking it with MLflow, and registering it in Unity Catalog with a governance alias. (Production deployment, serving, and monitoring are covered in the separate Advanced MLOps course.)
By the end, you will be able to choose, build, and justify distributed, reproducible, and governed model-development workflows on Databricks.
Note: For SCORM lecture files, please ensure that you close the SCORM window after completing the content. Do not click the ‘Next Lesson’ button, as doing so may prevent the SCORM module from being marked as complete.
• The user should have intermediate-level knowledge of traditional machine learning concepts, development, and the use of Python and Git for ML projects.
• It is recommended that the user has intermediate-level experience with Python.
• Databricks Academy content is designed to be run on the provided Vocareum environment only.
• Databricks does not guarantee that the content can be run successfully on any other instances of a Databricks Workspace.
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