Before the first
inference request.
A model deployment starts with a set of decisions. Use these seven questions to make the first technical conversation productive.
This is a planning aid. Compatibility, capacity, and delivery commitments require an assessment of your actual model and environment.
01 / What exactly are we deploying?
Record the model name, version, source, and intended use. Check whether the license permits the planned use and whether the required weights or artifacts are available. If the model is undecided, describe the task and representative inputs and outputs.
02 / Where must the model run?
Identify the customer cloud account or on-premises environment. Describe network boundaries, available compute, memory and storage, and any restrictions on downloading artifacts or reaching external services.
03 / What workload must it support?
Describe expected request volume, concurrent usage, input and output sizes, and any batch processing. Separate a representative workload from a hoped-for peak.
04 / What counts as acceptable performance?
Agree on how to measure response quality, response time, throughput, failure behavior, and resource usage. Tests should reflect the task the deployed model will actually perform.
05 / Who can access it?
Define the applications and people that may use the endpoint. Establish authentication, authorization, network controls, and how credentials will be rotated.
06 / What must be observable?
Decide which health, resource, error, and performance signals operators need. Agree what request data may be logged, who can see it, and how long it is retained.
07 / Who owns it after launch?
Name the owner for incidents, capacity changes, model updates, and rollback. A handover and an ongoing management arrangement need different responsibilities written down.
Bring the constraints you already know.
You do not need every answer before getting in touch. A useful brief tells us the model or task, the intended environment, and the constraint most likely to shape the deployment.
Discuss your deployment ↗Initial focus: language and embedding models. Other model types are assessed individually.