ray/doc/source/serve/production.md

(serve-in-production)=

Putting Ray Serve Deployment Graphs in Production

This section should help you:

• develop and test your Serve deployment graph locally
• understand the Serve config file format
• deploy, inspect, and update your Serve application in production

(serve-in-production-testing)=

Developing and Testing Your Serve Deployment Graph with serve run

You can test your Serve deployment graph using the Serve CLI's serve run command. The serve run command launches a temporary Ray cluster, deploys the graph to it, and blocks. Then, you can send HTTP requests to test your application. When your graph receives and processes these requests, it will output print and logging statements to the terminal. Once you're finished testing your graph, you can type ctrl-C to kill the temporary Ray cluster and tear down your graph. You can use this pattern to quickly run, debug, and iterate on your Serve deployment graph.

Let's use this graph as an example:

:language: python
:start-after: __fruit_example_begin__
:end-before: __fruit_example_end__

This graph is located in the fruit.py file and stored in the deployment_graph variable. It takes in requests containing a list of two values: a fruit name and an amount. It returns the total price for the batch of fruits.

To run the deployment graph, we first navigate to the same directory containing the fruit.py file and then run serve run fruit.deployment_graph. fruit.deployment_graph is the deployment graph's import path (assuming we are running serve run in the same directory as fruit.py).

# Terminal Window 1

$ ls
fruit.py

$ serve run fruit.deployment_graph
2022-06-21 13:07:01,966  INFO scripts.py:253 -- Deploying from import path: "fruit.deployment_graph".
2022-06-21 13:07:03,774  INFO services.py:1477 -- View the Ray dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:8265
...
2022-06-21 13:07:08,076  SUCC scripts.py:266 -- Deployed successfully.

We can test this graph by opening a new terminal window and making requests with Python's requests library.

# Terminal Window 2

$ python3

>>> import requests
>>> requests.post("http://localhost:8000/", json=["PEAR", 2]).json()
    8

Once we're finished, we can close the Python interpreter by running quit() and terminate the Ray cluster by typing ctrl-C int the terminal running serve run. This will tear down the deployments and then the cluster.

(serve-in-production-config-file)=

Creating Your Serve Config File with serve build

You can create a Serve config file to manage your deployment graphs' configurations in production. The Serve CLI can "deploy" this file, using the serve deploy command. This will deploy or update your deployment graphs in production. The file is written in YAML and has the following format:

import_path: ...

runtime_env: ...

host: ...

port: ...

deployments:

    - name: ...
      num_replicas: ...
      ...
    
    - name:
      ...
    
    ...

The import_path is the deployment graph's import path. When you deploy your config file, Serve will import your deployment graph using this path. Similarly, the runtime_env is the deployment graph's runtime environment. Serve will import the deployment graph inside this environment.

host and port are HTTP options. They determine the host IP address and the port for your Serve application's HTTP proxies. These are optional settings and can be omitted. By default, the host will be set to 0.0.0.0 to expose your deployments publicly, and the port will be set to 8000. If you're using Kubernetes, check out the documentation on deploying Serve on Kubernetes to see how these parameters affect your setup.

The deployments section is optional. If it's omitted, Serve will launch the deployment graph (and all its deployments). The graph will run with any deployment settings specified in the @serve.deployment decorators from the graph's code. If you want to override these decorator settings from the code, you can include a deployments section in the file. You can add an entry of deployment settings to the deployments list. The only required setting in each list entry is the deployment name, which must match one of the deployments from the graph's code. You can include any settings from the @serve.deployment decorator inside the entry, except init_args and init_kwargs, which must be set in the graph's code itself.

For example, let's take the FruitStand deployment graph from the previous section. An equivalent config would be:

import_path: fruit.deployment_graph

runtime_env: {}

deployments:

    - name: FruitMarket
      num_replicas: 2

    - name: MangoStand
      user_config:
        price: 3
    
    - name: OrangeStand
      user_config:
        price: 2
    
    - name: PearStand
      user_config:
        price: 4
    
    - name: DAGDriver

The file uses the same fruit.deployment_graph import path, and it has five entries in the deployments list– one for each deployment. All the entries contain a name setting (the only required setting when including an entry) as well as additional settings (such as num_replicas or user_config) depending on the deployment.

Note how this config specifies the same settings as the @serve.deployment decorators from the deployment graph's code. We can change or add to these settings to override the settings from the decorators.

:::{tip} Each individual entry in the deployments list is optional. In the example config file above, we could omit the PearStand, including its name and user_config, and the file would still be valid. When we deploy the file, the PearStand deployment will still be deployed, using the configurations set in the @serve.deployment decorator from the deployment graph's code. :::

We can also auto-generate this config file. The serve build command takes an import path to your deployment graph, and it creates a config file containing all the deployments and their settings from the graph. You can tweak these settings to manage you deployments in production.

Using the FruitStand deployment graph example:

$ ls
fruit.py

$ serve build fruit.deployment_graph -o fruit_config.yaml

$ ls
fruit.py
fruit_config.yaml

(fruit-config-yaml)=

The fruit_config.yaml file contains:

import_path: fruit.deployment_graph

runtime_env: {}

host: 0.0.0.0

port: 8000

deployments:

- name: MangoStand
  num_replicas: 2
  route_prefix: null
  max_concurrent_queries: 100
  user_config:
    price: 3
  autoscaling_config: null
  graceful_shutdown_wait_loop_s: 2.0
  graceful_shutdown_timeout_s: 20.0
  health_check_period_s: 10.0
  health_check_timeout_s: 30.0
  ray_actor_options: null

- name: OrangeStand
  num_replicas: 1
  route_prefix: null
  max_concurrent_queries: 100
  user_config:
    price: 2
  autoscaling_config: null
  graceful_shutdown_wait_loop_s: 2.0
  graceful_shutdown_timeout_s: 20.0
  health_check_period_s: 10.0
  health_check_timeout_s: 30.0
  ray_actor_options: null

- name: PearStand
  num_replicas: 1
  route_prefix: null
  max_concurrent_queries: 100
  user_config:
    price: 4
  autoscaling_config: null
  graceful_shutdown_wait_loop_s: 2.0
  graceful_shutdown_timeout_s: 20.0
  health_check_period_s: 10.0
  health_check_timeout_s: 30.0
  ray_actor_options: null

- name: FruitMarket
  num_replicas: 2
  route_prefix: null
  max_concurrent_queries: 100
  user_config: null
  autoscaling_config: null
  graceful_shutdown_wait_loop_s: 2.0
  graceful_shutdown_timeout_s: 20.0
  health_check_period_s: 10.0
  health_check_timeout_s: 30.0
  ray_actor_options: null

- name: DAGDriver
  num_replicas: 1
  route_prefix: /
  max_concurrent_queries: 100
  user_config: null
  autoscaling_config: null
  graceful_shutdown_wait_loop_s: 2.0
  graceful_shutdown_timeout_s: 20.0
  health_check_period_s: 10.0
  health_check_timeout_s: 30.0
  ray_actor_options: null

Note that the runtime_env field will always be empty when using serve build. That field must be set manually.

Additionally, serve build includes the default host and port in its autogenerated files. The 0.0.0.0 host exposes the Serve deployments publicly, and 8000 is the default port for Serve's HTTP proxies. You can modify these parameters to select a different host and port.

Overriding Deployment Settings

Settings from @serve.deployment can be overriden with this Serve config file. The order of priority is (from highest to lowest):

1. Config File
2. Deployment graph code (either through the @serve.deployment decorator or a .set_options() call)
3. Serve defaults

For example, if a deployment's num_replicas is specified in the config file and their graph code, Serve will use the config file's value. If it's only specified in the code, Serve will use the code value. If the user doesn't specify it anywhere, Serve will use a default (which is num_replicas=1).

Keep in mind that this override order is at the settings-level. For example, if a user has a deployment ExampleDeployment with the following decorator:

@serve.deployment(
    num_replicas=2,
    max_concurrent_queries=15,
)
class ExampleDeployment:
    ...

and the following config file:

...

deployments:

    - name: ExampleDeployment
      num_replicas: 5

...

Serve will set num_replicas=5, using the config file value, and max_concurrent_queries=15, using the code value (since max_concurrent_queries wasn't specified in the config file). All other deployment settings use Serve defaults since the user didn't specify them in the code or the config.

:::{tip} Remember that ray_actor_options is an independent setting. The entire ray_actor_options dictionary in the config file overrides the entire ray_actor_options dictionary from the graph code. If there are individual options within ray_actor_options (e.g. runtime_env, num_gpus, memory) that are set in the code but not in the config, Serve still won't use the code settings if the config has a ray_actor_options dictionary. It will treat these missing options as though the user never set them (and use defaults instead) since the entire ray_actor_options dictionary in the config overrides the one in the code. This dictionary overriding behavior also applies to user_config. :::

(serve-in-production-deploying)=

Deploying Your Serve Application to Production with serve deploy

You can deploy your Serve application to production using the config file and the serve deploy CLI command. serve deploy takes in a config file path, and it deploys that file to a Ray cluster.

Let's deploy the fruit_config.yaml file from the previous section:

$ ls
fruit.py
fruit_config.yaml

$ ray start --head
...

$ serve deploy fruit_config.yaml
2022-06-20 17:26:31,106	SUCC scripts.py:139 -- 
Sent deploy request successfully!
 * Use `serve status` to check deployments' statuses.
 * Use `serve config` to see the running app's config.

ray start --head starts a long-lived Ray cluster locally. serve deploy fruit_config.yaml deploys the fruit_config.yaml file to this local cluster. To stop your Ray cluster, you can run the CLI command ray stop.

The message Sent deploy request successfully! means:

• The Ray cluster has received your config file successfully.
• It will start a new Serve application if one hasn't already started.
• The Serve application will deploy the deployments from your deployment graph, updated with the configurations from your config file.

It does not mean that your Serve application, including your deployments, has already started running successfully. This happens asynchronously as the Ray cluster attempts to update itself to match the settings from your config file. Check out the next section to learn more about how to inspect your deployments.

Adding a Runtime Environment

If you start Ray and deploy your deployment graph from a directory that doesn't contain the graph code, your deployments will fail to run. This happens because your import path is generally location-dependent. For example, the import path fruit.deployment_graph assumes the current directory contains the fruit.py module, which contains a deployment_graph object.

To make your config file location-independent, you can push your deployment graph code to a remote repository and add that repository to your config file's runtime_env field. When Serve runs your deployment graph, it will pull the code from the remote repository rather than use a local copy. This is a best practice because it lets you deploy your config file from any machine in any directory and share the file with other developers, making it a more standalone artifact.

As an example, we have pushed a copy of the FruitStand deployment graph to GitHub. You can use this config file to deploy the FruitStand deployment graph to your own Ray cluster even if you don't have the code locally:

import_path: fruit.deployment_graph

runtime_env:
    working_dir: "https://github.com/ray-project/serve_config_examples/archive/HEAD.zip"

:::{note} As a side note, you could also package your deployment graph into a standalone Python package that can be imported using a PYTHONPATH to provide location independence on your local machine. However, it's still best practice to use a runtime_env, to ensure consistency across all machines in your cluster. :::

(serve-in-production-remote-cluster)=

Using a Remote Cluster

By default, serve deploy deploys to a cluster running locally. However, you should also use serve deploy whenever you want to deploy your Serve application to a remote cluster. serve deploy takes in an optional --address/-a argument where you can specify your remote Ray cluster's dashboard agent address. This address should be of the form:

[YOUR_RAY_CLUSTER_URI]:[DASHBOARD AGENT PORT]

As an example, the address for the local cluster started by ray start --head is http://127.0.0.1:52365. We can explicitly deploy to this address using the command

$ serve deploy config_file.yaml -a http://127.0.0.1:52365

The Ray dashboard agent's default port is 52365. You can set it to a different value using the --dashboard-agent-listen-port argument when running ray start."

:::{note} If the port 52365 (or whichever port you specify with --dashboard-agent-listen-port) is unavailable when Ray starts, the dashboard agent’s HTTP server will fail. However, the dashboard agent and Ray will continue to run. You can check if an agent’s HTTP server is running by sending a curl request: curl http://{node_ip}:{dashboard_agent_port}/api/serve/deployments/. If the request succeeds, the server is running on that node. If the request fails, the server is not running on that node. To launch the server on that node, terminate the process occupying the dashboard agent’s port, and restart Ray on that node. :::

:::{tip} By default, all the Serve CLI commands assume that you're working with a local cluster. All Serve CLI commands, except serve start and serve run use the Ray agent address associated with a local cluster started by ray start --head. However, if the RAY_AGENT_ADDRESS environment variable is set, these Serve CLI commands will default to that value instead.

Similarly, serve start and serve run, use the Ray head node address associated with a local cluster by default. If the RAY_ADDRESS environment variable is set, they will use that value instead.

You can check RAY_AGENT_ADDRESS's value by running:

$ echo $RAY_AGENT_ADDRESS

You can set this variable by running the CLI command:

$ export RAY_AGENT_ADDRESS=[YOUR VALUE]

You can unset this variable by running the CLI command:

$ unset RAY_AGENT_ADDRESS

Check for this variable in your environment to make sure you're using your desired Ray agent address. :::

(serve-in-production-inspecting)=

Inspecting Your Serve Application in Production with serve config and serve status

The Serve CLI offers two commands to help you inspect your Serve application in production: serve config and serve status.

If you're working with a remote cluster, serve config and serve status also offer an --address/-a argument to access your cluster. Check out the previous section for more info on this argument.

(serve-in-production-config-command)=

serve config

serve config gets the latest config file the Ray cluster received. This config file represents the Serve application's goal state. The Ray cluster will constantly attempt to reach and maintain this state by deploying deployments, recovering failed replicas, and more.

Using the fruit_config.yaml example from an earlier section:

$ ray start --head
$ serve deploy fruit_config.yaml
...

$ serve config
import_path: fruit.deployment_graph

runtime_env: {}

deployments:

- name: MangoStand
  num_replicas: 2
  route_prefix: null
...

(serve-in-production-status-command)=

serve status

serve status gets your Serve application's current status. It's divided into two parts: the app_status and the deployment_statuses.

The app_status contains three fields:

• status: a Serve application has three possible statuses:
  • "DEPLOYING": the application is currently carrying out a serve deploy request. It is deploying new deployments or updating existing ones.
  • "RUNNING": the application is at steady-state. It has finished executing any previous serve deploy requests, and it is attempting to maintain the goal state set by the latest serve deploy request.
  • "DEPLOY_FAILED": the latest serve deploy request has failed.
• message: provides context on the current status.
• deployment_timestamp: a unix timestamp of when Serve received the last serve deploy request. This is calculated using the ServeController's local clock.

The deployment_statuses contains a list of dictionaries representing each deployment's status. Each dictionary has three fields:

• name: the deployment's name.
• status: a Serve deployment has three possible statuses:
  • "UPDATING": the deployment is updating to meet the goal state set by a previous deploy request.
  • "HEALTHY": the deployment is at the latest requests goal state.
  • "UNHEALTHY": the deployment has either failed to update, or it has updated and has become unhealthy afterwards. This may be due to an error in the deployment's constructor, a crashed replica, or a general system or machine error.
• message: provides context on the current status.

You can use the serve status command to inspect your deployments after they are deployed and throughout their lifetime.

Using the fruit_config.yaml example from an earlier section:

$ ray start --head
$ serve deploy fruit_config.yaml
...

$ serve status
app_status:
  status: RUNNING
  message: ''
  deployment_timestamp: 1655771534.835145
deployment_statuses:
- name: MangoStand
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: OrangeStand
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: PearStand
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: FruitMarket
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: DAGDriver
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''

serve status can also be used with KubeRay, a Kubernetes operator for Ray Serve, to help deploy your Serve applications with Kubernetes. There's also work in progress to provide closer integrations between some of the features from this document, like serve status, with Kubernetes to provide a clearer Serve deployment story.

(serve-in-production-updating)=

Updating Your Serve Application in Production

You can also update your Serve applications once they're in production. You can update the settings in your config file and redeploy it using the serve deploy command.

Let's use the FruitStand deployment graph from an earlier section as an example. All the individual fruit deployments contain a reconfigure() method. This method allows us to issue lightweight updates to our deployments by updating the user_config. These updates don't need to tear down the running deployments, meaning there's less downtime as the deployments update.

First let's deploy the graph. Make sure to stop any previous Ray cluster using the CLI command ray stop for this example:

$ ray start --head
$ serve deploy fruit_config.yaml
...

$ python

>>> import requests
>>> requests.post("http://localhost:8000/", json=["MANGO", 2]).json()

6

Now, let's update the price of mangos in our deployment. We can change the price attribute in the MangoStand deployment to 5 in our config file:

import_path: fruit.deployment_graph

runtime_env: {}

deployments:

- name: MangoStand
  num_replicas: 2
  route_prefix: null
  max_concurrent_queries: 100
  user_config:
    # price: 3 (Outdated price)
    price: 5
  autoscaling_config: null
  graceful_shutdown_wait_loop_s: 2.0
  graceful_shutdown_timeout_s: 20.0
  health_check_period_s: 10.0
  health_check_timeout_s: 30.0
  ray_actor_options: null

...

Without stopping the Ray cluster, we can redeploy our graph using serve deploy:

$ serve deploy fruit_config.yaml
...

We can inspect our deployments with serve status. Once the app_status's status returns to "RUNNING", we can try our requests one more time:

$ serve status
app_status:
  status: RUNNING
  message: ''
  deployment_timestamp: 1655776483.457707
deployment_statuses:
- name: MangoStand
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: OrangeStand
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: PearStand
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: FruitMarket
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''
- name: DAGDriver
  status: HEALTHY
  message: ''

$ python

>>> import requests
>>> requests.post("http://localhost:8000/", json=["MANGO", 2]).json()

10

The price has updated! The same request now returns 10 instead of 6, reflecting the new price.

You can update any setting in any deployment in the config file similarly. You can also add new deployment settings or remove old deployment settings from the config. This is because serve deploy is idempotent. Your Serve application's will match the one specified in the latest config you deployed– regardless of what config files you deployed before that.

:::{warning} Although you can update your Serve application by deploying an entirely new deployment graph using a different import_path and a different runtime_env, this is NOT recommended in production.

The best practice for large-scale code updates is to start a new Ray cluster, deploy the updated code to it using serve deploy, and then switch traffic from your old cluster to the new one. :::

Best Practices

This section summarizes the best practices when deploying to production:

• Use serve run to manually test and improve your deployment graph locally.
• Use serve build to create a Serve config file for your deployment graph.
  • Put your deployment graph's code in a remote repository and manually configure the working_dir or py_modules fields in your Serve config file's runtime_env to point to that repository.
• Use serve deploy to deploy your graph and its deployments to your Ray cluster. After the deployment is finished, you can start serving traffic from your cluster.
• Use serve status to track your Serve application's health and deployment progress.
• Use serve config to check the latest config that your Serve application received. This is its goal state.
• Make lightweight configuration updates (e.g. num_replicas or user_config changes) by modifying your Serve config file and redeploying it with serve deploy.
• Make heavyweight code updates (e.g. runtime_env changes) by starting a new Ray cluster, updating your Serve config file, and deploying the file with serve deploy to the new cluster. Once the new deployment is finished, switch your traffic to the new cluster.