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DataOps follows the same principles just like DevOps/ DevSecOps but here it has few more elements related to Data domain.

DataOps focuses on data related aspects of operations. It makes sure data is properly integrated with source and target, its flowing-in using automated and best practices data pipelines, its highly secured, it’s of high quality etc.

DevOps doesn’t care whether its data project or mobile application project or any other technology project, but DataOps focuses on Data like where it is coming and where it will go, why it is coming and how it will be used, how much it costed and how much it will monetize etc.

As mentioned above, DataOps includes all the steps or processes involved in DevOps/ DevSecOps but at the same time it also introduces a few additional steps.

DataOps Process Flow

• Regular Integration
• Regular Development
• Regular Build
• Regular Testing
• Regular Deployment
• Regular Delivery/ Run
• Regular Monitoring and Feedback

This is one of the most confusing topics now a days as data is the most useable element of organizations now a day.

I won’t be going into details as we have discussed each as a separate topic but will only try to elaborate the difference between both.

Below is the high-level difference between both the practices.

• DevOps focuses on development by software developers, quality, and operations whereas DataOps focuses on source and target integrations, data transformation from data engineers, data quality and security.
• DevOps makes sure there is no hindrance in environment for HIGH QUALITY development cycle whereas DataOps makes sure, end users get HIGH QUALITY data, trusted data, ready to use data and actionable KPIs.
• DevOps make sure, all IT team members, operational team members, business team members are aligned to SPEED-UP the process after every sprint where DataOps makes sure, IT team members, development team members and business team members roles and responsibilities are aligned for FASTER collaborative work across teams.
• DevOps make sure, automation of all the servers management, versions control, configurations, testing, release management, etc. are AUTOMATED whereas DataOps makes sure, data acquisition, integration, metadata management, self-service, data governance, cross cloud, etc. are all in place and working in AUTOMATED fashion.
• DevOps works with stakeholders for real-time feedback after every sprint for FEEDBACK-ORIENTED optimization whereas DataOps works with stakeholders to get regular insights from new data flowing-in in real-time or in batch for RESULT-ORIENTED optimization.
• DevOps goes for regular implementations for QUICK recovery to cater failures in agile mode whereas DataOps goes for regular implementations to QUICKLY fix data quality and minimum metadata discovering in agile mode.

MLOps is also from the same family of DevOps, DevSecOps, DataOps, etc. Just like DataOps has a focus on data, MLOps focuses on Machine Learning Model’s end to end journey.

As the name says itself, MLOps (Machine Learning Operations) means from the availability of raw data till the ML model is deployed in PROD, this whole journey is called MLOps.

Please note, CI/ CD is a very critical part of MLOps as in Machine Learning world, 90% models do not go to Production. Most of the models are created, trained, and decommissioned due to N number of reasons. CI/CD plays a vital role of moving models from development to training area again and again and once confirmed by the owner, moved to Prod.

As mentioned, MLOps was extracted from the concept of DevOps, it follows the same pattern but has a different agenda.

The key phases of MLOps are: [These are taken from Best Practice on Databricks, Google and few other places.]

DLOps is like MLOps and belongs to Data Science domain.

Before we try to understand DLOps as compared to MLOps, one must understand the difference between Machine Learning and Deep Learning. (There is separate topic on difference between Machine Learning and Deep Learning)

‘It won’t be wrong to say, MACHINE LEARNING is for simpler and more structured & semi-structured use cases whereas DEEP LEARNING is for complex and unstructured use cases.’

Let’s try to understand with a simple example. If we need to find out how many cars, bikes or buses there are in structured or semi-structured datasets then it’s relatively easy as data is in rows and columns format. We can have the width, length, and height of each car, bike or bus so using MACHINE LEARNING models we can easily ready this dataset and produce expected output. But what if we give pictures to ML models to extract the same result, will it be possible? The answer is No as ML models normally work on structured or semi-structured datasets. To find out cars, bikes, or buses from pictures, DEEP LEARNING models are used which can recognize the objects in the pictures and find out which presents car or bike or a bus.

There is a very thin line between ModelOps and MLOps. ModelOps is the next stage of MLOps where focus is more towards automating, retraining, and maturing models on its own.

MLOps mainly focuses on model management, model monitoring and CI/ CD whereas ModelOps mainly focuses on addressing and sharing AI performance to the stakeholders without the need of Data Science and Machine Learning Team members.

Few differences between ModelOps and MLOps.

• MLOps focuses on ML models operationalization whereas ModelOps focuses on decision models and AI operationalization.
• MLOps focuses on continuous cycle of development, implementation, and monitoring of models whereas ModelOps focuses on life cycle management and governance of models.
• MLOps focuses on creating models for AI enabled applications whereas ModelOps focuses on AI transparency and usage of KPIs by business users.

In nutshell, ModelOps supports AI capabilities where involvement of Data Science become less and less as Models run on their own, retrain on their own, deploy on their own, extract business KPIs on their own etc.

With the introduction of the big data era, it became impossible to manually manage those.

‘ITOps focuses on the best in practice IT operations.’

A few main areas of focus for ITOps are.

• IT Service Improvement
• IT Service Strategy and Design
• IT Service Transition
• IT Service Operations
• There are many ITOps lifecycles followed by organizations like
• Maintain the HEALTH of the IT Infrastructure
• Visibility of the IT Infrastructure
• Automation of IT Services
• Optimization of IT Services

AIOps was initiated by Gartner in 2016. It supports DevOps, DataOps, MLOps, DLOps and ITOps together.

AIOps came to surface after the inception of Big Data era where huge data started to flow in, where DevOps, DataOps, MLOps, DLOps rather every kind of operational tasks had tripled. And as we know everyone has recently realized the importance of Data so now everyone wants to progress in data ignoring the fact that automation requires processes and governance etc. That is why AIOps came into picture where everything is handled by the system itself.

AIOps is about assisting DevOps, DataOps, MLOps and ITOps etc., to work seamlessly. AIOps uses algorithms to make things happen like preventing outages, maintaining uptime and assure continuous services. Unlike DevOps, MLOps and ITOps where human interactions are still required, here AIOps makes sure everything runs on its own.

As mentioned, AIOps handles end to end operations on it owns, below are few stages.

These are one of the most confusing terms in the data domain. Both are mostly confused with each other.

The major difference between both is.

• Data Mining is done on ONLY structured data.
• Data Science is done on structured, semi and unstructured data.

Data Science is mostly tagged with Big Data and Data Mining is tagged with Data Warehousing. There are many definitions and comparisons for both in the market as both do machine learning, deep learning, data cleansing, statics, and math algorithms etc.

‘Data Science is the Superset of Data Mining.’

Data Mining is also known as KDD (Knowledge Discovery in Data). First it was performed in excel, then with the introduction of DWH, an automated process started discovering historical patterns and other valuable information from large data sets which are structured.

Now with the introduction of Big Data, Data Lake, NoSQL databases, semi and unstructured datasets, the magnitude of the data size has taken a huge step ahead and Data Science has come onto the surface.

We all know what Machine Learning (ML) models are right? ML is about using raw but structured or semi-structured dataset, then creating feature tables which are no more than traditional tables but with cleansed data. Later, ML models use this cleansed dataset to classify data and produce expected results.

Same way, Deep Learning models is about using raw but unstructured dataset where no one will know what will flow in. Deep Learning models dig out required data from that unstructured dataset to prepare cleansed dataset in shape of feature tables to classify for expected results.

For example, if we need to find out how many cars, bikes or buses there are in structured or semi-structured datasets then it’s relatively easy as in rows and columns format. We can have the width, length, and height so using ML models can easily ready this dataset and produce expected output. But what if we give pictures to ML models to extract the same result, will it be possible? The answer is No as ML models normally work on structured or semi-structured datasets. To find out cars, bikes, or buses from pictures, Deep Learning (DL) algorithm and models are used which can recognize the objects in the pictures and find out which presents car or bike or a bus. Please note, the next stage is supervised and unsupervised learning.

Supervised and Unsupervised Learning categorizes the dataset into two where there are situations where sometimes we know or sometimes, we don’t know what’s in there.

We have discussed this on another topic i.e., Data Classification, Categorization and Data Clustering but as Supervised and Unsupervised Learning are very important to understand Machine Learning, let’s understand it again here.

In Machine Learning, there are Supervised and Unsupervised Learning methods.

Both terms are used for pattern identification before complex algorithms come into action.

Supervised Learning is done based on the uniqueness of the data where e.g., all animals are tagged separately. Whereas Unsupervised Learning is done based on the characteristics we can create clusters e.g., 1) Animals with 2 legs 2) Animals with 4 legs.

• Supervised Learning uses labeled data whereas Unsupervised Learning uses unlabeled data.
• The most popular Supervised Learning algorithms in data mining are the K-Nearest Neighbor and decision tree algorithms.
• The two common Unsupervised Learning algorithms in data mining are K-means clustering and hierarchical clustering.
• Supervised Learning output is known.
• Unsupervised Learning out is unknown.
• Training data is provided for Supervised Learning.
• No training data is provided for Unsupervised Learning.