AzureML endpoint - gunicorn worker timeout

Question

Hello everyone,
I am trying to deploy a large model using AzureML endpoint.
The model is made up of many sub-models which get loaded by the init() method as described in the documentation here.
The model is trained and then registered in AzureML.

When I deploy the model I can see in the logs that the gunicorn worker resets themselves after 300 seconds, so the whole ensemble of sub-models never have time to completely be loaded.

Is there a way to manually set the timeout of the gunicorn workers?

Answer 1

Hi @Ramr-msft thanks for the time.
So I have a notebook that I use for deploying. The steps are the following:
First I connect to the Workspace and select a registered model and a registered env.

ws = Workspace.from_config(path="./config.json")  
model = Model(ws, 'Model_Name')  
env = Environment.get(workspace=ws, name="condaenv")  

Then I create a inference config and deploy config with this cell:

inference_config = InferenceConfig(  
    environment=env,  
    source_directory="../lib",  
    entry_script="azureml/score.py",  
)  
deploy_config = AciWebservice.deploy_configuration(cpu_cores=1, memory_gb=4)  

My score.py has the required two methods init() and run() plus a couple of methods to postprocess the inferred data:

def init():  
global model  
model = MyModel.load(os.getenv('AZUREML_MODEL_DIR'))  
  
def run(request):  
predictions = model.predict(request)  
return postprocess(predictons)  

The actual deployment is then done by running the next cell:

service = Model.deploy(  
    ws,  
    "model-service",  
    [model],  
    inference_config,  
    deploy_config,   
    overwrite=True,  
    show_output=True,  
)  
  
service.wait_for_deployment(show_output=True)  

So then AzureML work his magic stuff until then it runs the init method in score.py.
Problem starts here, since the loading of all the sub-models takes more than 300s and the workers timeout and are killed, then a new one is spawned but then the cycle starts again.

In other project (which did not involve using AzureML endpoints) I had a more direct access to gunicorn configuration and I could change the timeout or set the loading of the module to complete before workers were spawn.

Is something similar possible with AzureML endpoints?

Answer 2

@Matteo @Ramr-msft Was there ever a solution found to this problem?

Answer 3

I found a workaround for this. Package the model before deployment.

Answer 4

Anyone found a solution? I have a similar iussue

Answer 5

I have met the same problem, when it takes more than 5 minutes in init(), the gunicorn will terminate the process and the deployment cannot be done.

Any idea to configure the gunicorn timeout in the process of endpoint deployment?