Evaluation of MLOps Tools for Kubernetes : A Rudimentary Comparison Between Open Source Kubeflow, Pachyderm and Polyaxon

Abstract: MLOps and Kubernetes are two major components of the modern-day information technology landscape, and their impact on the field is likely to grow even stronger in the near future. As a multitude of tools have been developed for the purpose of facilitating effortless creation of cloud native MLOps solutions, many of them have been designed, to varying degrees, to integrate with the Kubernetes system. While numerous evaluations have been conducted on these tools from a general MLOps perspective, this thesis aims to evaluate their qualities specifically within a Kubernetes context, with the focus being on their integration into this ecosystem. The evaluation is conducted in two steps: an MLOps market overview study, as well as an in-depth MLOps tool evaluation. The former represents a macroscopic overview of currently available MLOps tooling, whereas the latter delves into the practical aspects of deploying three Kubernetes native, open source MLOps platforms on cloud-based Kubernetes clusters. The platforms are Kubeflow, Pachyderm, and Polyaxon, and these are evaluated in terms of functionality, usability, vitality, and performance.