1. Azure Machine Learning Studio:
- What is Azure Machine Learning Studio, and how does it simplify the process of building, training, and deploying machine learning models?
- How would you create a machine learning pipeline in Azure ML Studio? Explain the key components involved in a typical pipeline.
- How do datasets and datastores work in Azure ML Studio? How do you manage and version datasets?
- What is the role of Compute Targets in Azure ML Studio, and how do they enable scalable model training?
- Explain the concept of experiments in Azure ML Studio. How do you track different runs of experiments?
2. Model Training & Optimization:
- How would you implement distributed training in Azure Machine Learning? What are some best practices for using Azure Machine Learning Compute for large-scale training?
- What is Azure HyperDrive, and how does it help in hyperparameter tuning for machine learning models? Explain how you would configure an experiment to use HyperDrive.
- Can you explain the difference between automated ML and custom training in Azure ML Studio? When would you use one over the other?
- What are Azure Machine Learning Pipelines, and how do they help in automating the ML workflow? How do you manage different stages like data preparation, model training, and deployment in these pipelines?
- How would you handle imbalanced datasets during model training in Azure ML? What techniques or tools does Azure provide for data augmentation or resampling?
3. Model Deployment:
- How do you deploy a trained model in Azure ML Studio? Explain the process of deploying to an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster.
- What are the key differences between deploying a model to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Container Instances (ACI), and Azure Functions? When would you use each one?
- Explain how Azure Machine Learning Endpoints work for serving machine learning models. What are the key considerations when setting up a real-time endpoint vs. a batch inference endpoint?
- What is Azure ML Model Management? How do you track model versions and manage the lifecycle of a machine learning model?
- How do you set up A/B testing for a deployed machine learning model in Azure? What features in Azure ML allow for safe model rollouts?
4. Azure Machine Learning Designer:
- What is Azure Machine Learning Designer, and how does it allow for a no-code/low-code approach to building machine learning models?
- How would you use pre-built modules in Azure Machine Learning Designer to design a machine learning workflow?
- What is the difference between Designer pipelines and Python SDK pipelines in Azure ML?
- How do you integrate a custom Python or R script into an Azure ML Designer workflow?
- How would you operationalize a Designer pipeline for continuous training and deployment in Azure?
5. Security & Governance:
- How do you ensure the security of your machine learning models and data when working on Azure ML?
- Explain how you would use Azure Active Directory (AAD) and role-based access control (RBAC) to manage access to your Azure ML resources.
- What strategies would you use to secure sensitive data in Azure Blob Storage when used in an ML pipeline?
- How do you handle data encryption in transit and at rest in Azure Machine Learning?
- How does Azure Key Vault integrate with Azure ML to manage secrets and credentials securely during model training and deployment?
6. Data Engineering & Feature Engineering:
- How would you use Azure Data Factory or Azure Synapse to orchestrate data preprocessing tasks for machine learning workflows?
- How does Azure Databricks integrate with Azure ML for large-scale data processing and feature engineering? When would you prefer Databricks over Azure ML’s native data processing tools?
- How do you use Azure ML’s DataPrep SDK for cleaning and transforming data before feeding it into machine learning models?
- What is Azure Feature Store (if applicable), and how does it help in managing and sharing features across ML models?
- How do you handle missing values, outliers, or scaling issues in Azure ML datasets?
7. AutoML and Cognitive Services:
- What is Azure Automated Machine Learning (AutoML), and how does it simplify the process of model training and selection? When would you use AutoML?
- How do Azure Cognitive Services such as Azure Vision, Speech, and Text Analytics integrate into machine learning pipelines?
- How would you use Azure AutoML to train models for time series forecasting or classification tasks?
- How does Azure handle natural language processing (NLP) with services like Azure Text Analytics and Azure Language Understanding (LUIS)?
- Explain how Azure Form Recognizer and Azure Custom Vision can be used in combination with custom machine learning models.
8. DevOps for Machine Learning (MLOps):
- How would you set up an MLOps pipeline in Azure for continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) of machine learning models?
- Explain how you would integrate Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, and GitHub Actions for automating machine learning workflows.
- How do Azure ML Pipelines enable CI/CD for machine learning models? What are the key components you need to orchestrate training, testing, and deployment?
- How do you version datasets, models, and experiments in Azure ML using Azure Repos or GitHub?
- Explain how Azure Monitor and Azure Application Insights can be used to track the performance of deployed models in production.
9. Scalability & Performance:
- How do you optimize compute resource selection in Azure ML for large-scale model training?
- How does Azure ML support distributed training across multiple GPUs or multi-node clusters? Explain how you would configure such training jobs.
- What is Azure ML ParallelRunStep, and how does it help in running large-scale batch inference jobs?
- How would you implement auto-scaling for machine learning models deployed in AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service) or Azure Functions?
- How do you ensure cost-efficiency when running large-scale experiments or deploying multiple machine learning models in Azure?
10. Monitoring & Maintenance:
- How do you monitor a deployed machine learning model in Azure ML for data drift or concept drift?
- What is Azure ML Model Monitor, and how does it help in continuously monitoring the quality of machine learning models in production?
- How do you set up automated alerts using Azure Monitor for detecting anomalies or performance degradation in deployed models?
- Explain how you would automate model retraining when performance metrics indicate a decline in accuracy or when new data is available.
- How do you handle model versioning in Azure Machine Learning Studio, and what are the best practices for rolling back to a previous version of the model if needed?
11. Integration with Other Azure Services:
- How do you integrate Azure Data Lake or Azure SQL Database with Azure ML for storing and retrieving large datasets?
- How would you use Azure Stream Analytics or Azure Event Hub to feed streaming data into your machine learning models for real-time inference?
- How do you combine Azure Logic Apps or Azure Functions with Azure ML to build end-to-end automation for machine learning workflows?
- What is the role of Azure Cognitive Search in a machine learning pipeline? How can it be integrated for tasks like document classification or recommendation systems?
- How does Azure IoT Edge enable deploying machine learning models at the edge? What are the challenges and best practices for managing edge deployments in Azure?
12. Real-World Scenario Questions:
- How would you design an end-to-end machine learning solution in Azure for a recommendation system or fraud detection system?
- How do you handle time series data for prediction tasks using Azure ML? What services would you use to preprocess, train, and deploy models?
- Suppose you need to train a machine learning model with terabytes of data stored in Azure Blob Storage. How would you architect the data pipeline, and which services would you use to efficiently manage this?
- How would you ensure data security and privacy compliance (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) in a machine learning solution deployed on Azure?
- What challenges would you face when deploying a machine learning model in a multi-region or global architecture using Azure, and how would you overcome them?