Explore developer tools for workspace interaction

You can use various tools to interact with the Azure Machine Learning workspace. Depending on what task you need to perform and your preference for developer tool, you can choose which tool to use when. This lab is designed as an introduction to the developer tools commonly used for workspace interaction. If you want to learn how to use a specific tool in more depth, there are other labs to explore.

Before you start

You’ll need an Azure subscription in which you have administrative-level access.

The commonly used developer tools for interacting with the Azure Machine Learning workspace are:

  • Azure CLI with the Azure Machine Learning extension: This command-line approach is ideal for the automation of infrastructure.
  • Azure Machine Learning studio: Use the user-friendly UI to explore the workspace and all of its capabilities.
  • Python SDK for Azure Machine Learning: Use to submit jobs and manage models from a Jupyter notebook, ideal for data scientists.

You’ll explore each of these tools for tasks that are commonly done with that tool.

Provision the infrastructure with the Azure CLI

For a data scientist to train a machine learning model with Azure Machine Learning, you’ll need to set up the necessary infrastructure. You can use the Azure CLI with the Azure Machine Learning extension to create an Azure Machine Learning workspace and resources like a compute instance.

To start, open the Azure Cloud Shell, install the Azure Machine Learning extension and clone the Git repo.

  1. In a browser, open the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com/, signing in with your Microsoft account.
  2. Select the [>_] (Cloud Shell) button at the top of the page to the right of the search box. This opens a Cloud Shell pane at the bottom of the portal.
  3. Select Bash if asked. The first time you open the cloud shell, you will be asked to choose the type of shell you want to use (Bash or PowerShell).
  4. Check that the correct subscription is specified and that No storage account required is selected. Select Apply.

  5. Remove any ML CLI extensions (both version 1 and 2) to avoid any conflicts with previous versions with this command:

     az extension remove -n azure-cli-ml
 az extension remove -n ml

    Use SHIFT + INSERT to paste your copied code into the Cloud Shell.

    Ignore any (error) messages that say that the extensions were not installed.

  6. Install the Azure Machine Learning (v2) extension with the following command:

     az extension add -n ml -y

  7. Create a resource group. Choose a location close to you.

     az group create --name "rg-dp100-labs" --location "eastus"

  8. Create a workspace:

     az ml workspace create --name "mlw-dp100-labs" -g "rg-dp100-labs"
  9. Wait for the workspace and its associated resources to be created - this typically takes around 5 minutes.

Create a compute instance with the Azure CLI

Another important part of the infrastructure needed to train a machine learning model is compute. Though you can train models locally, it’s more scalable and cost efficient to use cloud compute.

When data scientists are developing a machine learning model in the Azure Machine Learning workspace, they want to use a virtual machine on which they can run Jupyter notebooks. For development, a compute instance is an ideal fit.

After creating an Azure Machine Learning workspace, you can also create a compute instance using the Azure CLI.

In this exercise, you’ll create a compute instance with the following settings:

  • Compute name: Name of compute instance. Has to be unique and fewer than 24 characters.
  • Virtual machine size: STANDARD_DS11_V2
  • Compute type (instance or cluster): ComputeInstance
  • Azure Machine Learning workspace name: mlw-dp100-labs
  • Resource group: rg-dp100-labs

  1. Use the following command to create a compute instance in your workspace. If the compute instance name contains “XXXX”, replace it with random numbers to create a unique name.

     az ml compute create --name "ciXXXX" --size STANDARD_DS11_V2 --type ComputeInstance -w mlw-dp100-labs -g rg-dp100-labs

    If you get an error message that a compute instance with the name already exists, change the name and retry the command.

Create a compute cluster with the Azure CLI

Though a compute instance is ideal for development, a compute cluster is better suited when we want to train machine learning models. Only when a job is submitted to use the compute cluster, will it resize to more than 0 nodes and run the job. Once the compute cluster is no longer needed, it will automatically resize back to 0 nodes to minimize costs.

To create a compute cluster, you can use the Azure CLI, similar to creating a compute instance.

You’ll create a compute cluster with the following settings:

  • Compute name: aml-cluster
  • Virtual machine size: STANDARD_DS11_V2
  • Compute type: AmlCompute (Creates a compute cluster)
  • Maximum instances: Maximum number of nodes
  • Azure Machine Learning workspace name: mlw-dp100-labs
  • Resource group: rg-dp100-labs

  1. Use the following command to create a compute cluster in your workspace.

     az ml compute create --name "aml-cluster" --size STANDARD_DS11_V2 --max-instances 2 --type AmlCompute -w mlw-dp100-labs -g rg-dp100-labs

Configure your workstation with the Azure Machine Learning studio

Though the Azure CLI is ideal for automation, you may want to review the output of the commands you executed. You can use the Azure Machine Learning studio to check whether resources and assets have been created, and to check whether jobs ran successfully or review why a job failed.

  1. In the Azure portal, navigate to the Azure Machine Learning workspace named mlw-dp100-labs.
  2. Select the Azure Machine Learning workspace, and in its Overview page, select Launch studio. Another tab will open in your browser to open the Azure Machine Learning studio.
  3. Close any pop-ups that appear in the studio.
  4. Within the Azure Machine Learning studio, navigate to the Compute page and verify that the compute instance and cluster you created in the previous section exist. The compute instance should be running, the cluster should be idle and have 0 nodes running.

Use the Python SDK to train a model

Now that you’ve verified that the necessary compute has been created, you can use the Python SDK to run a training script. You’ll install and use the Python SDK on the compute instance and train the machine learning model on the compute cluster.

  1. Select the Terminal application for your compute instance to launch the terminal.

  2. In the terminal, install the Python SDK on the compute instance by running the following commands in the terminal:

     pip uninstall azure-ai-ml
 pip install azure-ai-ml

    Ignore any (error) messages that say that the packages were not installed.

  3. Run the following command to clone a Git repository containing notebooks, data, and other files to your workspace:

     git clone https://github.com/MicrosoftLearning/mslearn-azure-ml.git azure-ml-labs
  4. When the command has completed, in the Files pane, select ↻ to refresh the view and verify that a new Users/your-user-name/azure-ml-labs folder has been created.

  5. Open the Labs/02/Run training script.ipynb notebook.

    Select Authenticate and follow the necessary steps if a notification appears asking you to authenticate.

  6. Verify that the notebook uses the Python 3.8 - AzureML kernel. Each kernel has its own image with its own set of packages pre-installed.
  7. Run all cells in the notebook.

A new job will be created in the Azure Machine Learning workspace. The job tracks the inputs defined in the job configuration, the code used, and the outputs like metrics to evaluate the model.

Review your job history in the Azure Machine Learning studio

When you submit a job to the Azure Machine Learning workspace, you can review its status in the Azure Machine Learning studio.

  1. Either select the job URL provided as output in the notebook, or navigate to the Jobs page in the Azure Machine Learning studio.
  2. A new experiment is listed named diabetes-training. Select the latest job diabetes-pythonv2-train.
  3. Review the job’s Properties. Note the job Status:
    • Queued: The job is waiting for compute to become available.
    • Preparing: The compute cluster is resizing or the environment is being installed on the compute target.
    • Running: The training script is being executed.
    • Finalizing: The training script ran and the job is being updated with all final information.
    • Completed: The job successfully completed and is terminated.
    • Failed: The job failed and is terminated.
  4. Under Outputs + logs, you’ll find the output of the script in user_logs/std_log.txt. Outputs from print statements in the script will show here. If there’s an error because of a problem with your script, you’ll find the error message here too.
  5. Under Code, you’ll find the folder you specified in the job configuration. This folder includes the training script and dataset.

Delete Azure resources

When you finish exploring Azure Machine Learning, you should delete the resources you’ve created to avoid unnecessary Azure costs.

  1. Close the Azure Machine Learning studio tab and return to the Azure portal.
  2. In the Azure portal, on the Home page, select Resource groups.
  3. Select the rg-dp100-labs resource group.
  4. At the top of the Overview page for your resource group, select Delete resource group.
  5. Enter the resource group name to confirm you want to delete it, and select Delete.