Simor

Data Infrastructure for Production AI

Practical writing on AI data engineering, feature stores, and the infrastructure choices that determine whether AI systems work in production.

ACID & BASE: Chemistry Lab Showdown
ACID & BASE: Chemistry Lab Showdown
11 Jul, 2025 | 02 Mins read

Two chemistry labs, different philosophies. ACID lab: Every experiment follows strict protocols. Reactions complete perfectly or not at all. Measurements are exact. Nothing proceeds until everything

Optimising Cloud AI Costs: Rightsizing Compute & Storage
Optimising Cloud AI Costs: Rightsizing Compute & Storage
11 Jul, 2025 | 06 Mins read

A fintech startup's cloud bill grew from $50,000 to $800,000 per month in six months. GPU clusters sat idle between training runs. Terabytes of experimental data accumulated in premium storage. Develo

Consistent Hashing: The Pizza Slice Wheel
Consistent Hashing: The Pizza Slice Wheel
04 Jul, 2025 | 03 Mins read

Imagine arranging pizza party guests on a circle, dividing it like pizza slices. Each station serves a section. When a guest leaves, only their immediate neighbors shift slightly. The rest stay where

Library Book Whisperer
Library Book Whisperer
27 Jun, 2025 | 03 Mins read

A library maintains an unofficial whisper network. A patron asks about a book, and a librarian remembers: "Sarah at the reference desk has it." This network bypasses the official catalog, turning hour

Federated Learning in the Enterprise: Architecture & MLOps
Federated Learning in the Enterprise: Architecture & MLOps
27 Jun, 2025 | 06 Mins read

A hospital network had data from 47 hospitals. They had top data scientists. They could not combine the data. Legal teams cited privacy regulations. Hospital administrators worried about competitive a

Embeddings: GPS for Words
Embeddings: GPS for Words
20 Jun, 2025 | 05 Mins read

Embeddings assign numerical coordinates to words and concepts. "Cat" sits near "kitten" and "feline" but far from "airplane." "Paris" neighbors "France" and "Eiffel Tower" but distances itself from "T

Cosine Similarity: The Handshake Angle
Cosine Similarity: The Handshake Angle
13 Jun, 2025 | 04 Mins read

At a networking event, watch how people greet each other. Some reach straight out for a firm handshake. Others angle up for a high-five. A few go low for a fist bump. Measure not the style of greeting

Edge AI Pipelines: Streaming Data from Sensors to Micro-Models
Edge AI Pipelines: Streaming Data from Sensors to Micro-Models
13 Jun, 2025 | 06 Mins read

A turbine failed catastrophically at a wind farm. Vibration sensors had detected anomalies weeks earlier. By the time sensor data traveled from remote turbines to central data centers, got processed b

Parquet vs ORC: Suitcase vs Trunk
Parquet vs ORC: Suitcase vs Trunk
06 Jun, 2025 | 04 Mins read

Packing for a month-long trip. Do you use a suitcase with clever compartments, compression bags, and built-in organization? Or a trunk with adjustable dividers, heavy-duty locks, and industrial-streng