Effective ML Model Versioning in Edge Networks

Machine learning (ML) models, data and software need to be regularly updated whenever essential version updates are released and feasible for integration. This is a basic but most challenging requirement to satisfy in the edge, due to the various system constraints and the major impact that an update can have on robustness and stability. In this paper, we formulate for the first time the ML model versioning optimization problem, and propose effective solutions, including the automation with reinforcement learning (RL) based algorithm. Without loss of generality, we choose the edge network environment due to the known constraints in performance, response time, security, and reliability. The performance study shows that ML model version updates can be fully and effectively automated with reinforcement learning method as compared to other approaches. We show that with a carefully chosen range of traffic load values, the proper versioning can improve the security, reliability and ML model accuracy, while assuring a comparably lower response time.