Building a Feature Store

A feature store is a critical component in the development of machine learning (ML) platforms as it enables practitioners to efficiently build production ML systems. It addresses the challenges of managing data pipelines and provides a standardized way to serve features to models in real-time for inference at high scale and low latency. The key considerations when designing a feature store include gathering requirements, understanding the components, and making overall best practices throughout the process. A feature store typically consists of several components including a build, feature registry, data processing engine, orchestration, offline feature store, online feature store, serving infrastructure, access controls, compliance capabilities, SDK, monitoring, canary testing, and hidden challenges. Building a feature store requires careful planning, training, and ongoing maintenance to ensure its success.