Stage 7: Model Infrastructure¶

7 Operate AI systems as production software.

Goal¶

Build the infrastructure layer for data pipelines, model adaptation pipelines, serving, deployment, observability, reliability, and cost control.

Roadmap to Master This Stage¶

Read the stage goal and diagram before opening the parts.
Move through the parts in order unless you can already pass the exit criteria.
Study each sub-part folder: overview, deep dive, and examples/practice.
Build the stage artifact in small slices and measure the listed metrics.
Use the part exam after each part, or open the global Exam tab to test across the roadmap.

Stage Structure Diagram¶

%%{init: {"flowchart": {"htmlLabels": true, "nodeSpacing": 70, "rankSpacing": 90}, "themeVariables": {"fontSize": "18px"}} }%%
flowchart LR
  P1["<b>7.1</b><br/>Data Pipeline<br/>Architecture"]
  P2["<b>7.2</b><br/>RAG and Feature<br/>Infrastructure"]
  P1 --> P2
  P3["<b>7.3</b><br/>Training and Adaptation<br/>Pipelines"]
  P2 --> P3
  P4["<b>7.4</b><br/>Serving and Deployment"]
  P3 --> P4
  P5["<b>7.5</b><br/>Observability and<br/>Quality Operations"]
  P4 --> P5
  P6["<b>7.6</b><br/>Reliability and Cost<br/>Control"]
  P5 --> P6

Parts¶

Part	Simple explanation	Build focus
7.1 Data Pipeline Architecture	Move raw data through repeatable ingestion, cleaning, validation, and lineage steps.	Create an ETL pipeline.
7.2 RAG and Feature Infrastructure	Operate embeddings, vector indexes, feature artifacts, and refresh jobs as production assets.	Build a rebuildable vector index pipeline.
7.3 Training and Adaptation Pipelines	Automate dataset generation, fine-tuning, evaluation, and artifact export.	Create a generate-train-evaluate-export pipeline.
7.4 Serving and Deployment	Expose model behavior through reliable APIs, containers, streaming, batching, and deployment environments.	Deploy a model-backed endpoint.
7.5 Observability and Quality Operations	Instrument AI systems across prompts, retrieval, model calls, tools, traces, and quality metrics.	Add dashboards and alert rules.
7.6 Reliability and Cost Control	Prevent dependency failures, runaway retries, quota blowups, and silent quality regressions.	Add reliability controls and budget alerts.

Sub-Part Map¶

Part	Sub-part	Why it matters
7.1	7.1.1 ETL and Scheduled Jobs	ETL and Scheduled Jobs is the working skill inside Data Pipeline Architecture that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.1	7.1.2 Crawlers and Connectors	Crawlers and Connectors is the working skill inside Data Pipeline Architecture that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.1	7.1.3 Cleaning and Validation	Cleaning and Validation is the working skill inside Data Pipeline Architecture that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.1	7.1.4 Lineage and Versioning	Lineage and Versioning is the working skill inside Data Pipeline Architecture that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.2	7.2.1 Embedding Jobs	Embedding Jobs is the working skill inside RAG and Feature Infrastructure that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.2	7.2.2 Vector Store Operations	Vector Store Operations is the working skill inside RAG and Feature Infrastructure that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.2	7.2.3 Feature Stores and Artifacts	Feature Stores and Artifacts is the working skill inside RAG and Feature Infrastructure that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.2	7.2.4 Index Refresh and Rollback	Index Refresh and Rollback is the working skill inside RAG and Feature Infrastructure that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.3	7.3.1 Pipeline Orchestration	Pipeline Orchestration is the working skill inside Training and Adaptation Pipelines that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.3	7.3.2 Dataset Generation Jobs	Dataset Generation Jobs is the working skill inside Training and Adaptation Pipelines that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.3	7.3.3 Fine Tuning Jobs	Fine Tuning Jobs is the working skill inside Training and Adaptation Pipelines that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.3	7.3.4 Model Registry and Release Gates	Model Registry and Release Gates is the working skill inside Training and Adaptation Pipelines that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.4	7.4.1 Inference APIs and Streaming	Inference APIs and Streaming is the working skill inside Serving and Deployment that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.4	7.4.2 Containers and Runtime Images	Containers and Runtime Images is the working skill inside Serving and Deployment that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.4	7.4.3 Cloud Deployment	Cloud Deployment is the working skill inside Serving and Deployment that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.4	7.4.4 Queues Batching and Autoscaling	Queues Batching and Autoscaling is the working skill inside Serving and Deployment that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.5	7.5.1 Logs Metrics and Traces	Logs Metrics and Traces is the working skill inside Observability and Quality Operations that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.5	7.5.2 Evaluation in CI	Evaluation in CI is the working skill inside Observability and Quality Operations that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.5	7.5.3 Dashboards Alerts and Runbooks	Dashboards Alerts and Runbooks is the working skill inside Observability and Quality Operations that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.6	7.6.1 Timeouts Retries and Circuit Breakers	Timeouts Retries and Circuit Breakers is the working skill inside Reliability and Cost Control that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.6	7.6.2 Caching Routing and Quotas	Caching Routing and Quotas is the working skill inside Reliability and Cost Control that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.
7.6	7.6.3 Incident Response and Postmortems	Incident Response and Postmortems is the working skill inside Reliability and Cost Control that helps you build the stage artifact, A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards, while collecting enough evidence to trust the result.

Stage Artifact¶

A deployed model-backed service with data or retrieval pipeline, registry metadata, eval checks, structured logs, and dashboards.

What to Measure¶

p50 and p95 latency
error rate
eval pass rate
cost per request
throughput
rollback time

Exit Criteria¶

package AI services reproducibly
run configured pipelines
deploy model-backed APIs
monitor quality, latency, cost, and errors

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