Introduction to model lifecycle management

A model is a governed asset

Model choice affects behavior, licensing, data handling, runtime, capacity, security, portability, and evidence. Selecting a model from a leaderboard or familiar brand leaves these consequences unresolved.

SAI-210 manages the lifecycle from requirements and candidate discovery through acquisition, evaluation, selection, packaging, approval, deployment, monitoring, update, revocation, and retirement.

Decision principles

• Begin with an approved purpose and measurable acceptance criteria.
• Compare candidates under representative conditions.
• Preserve model, tokenizer, configuration, license, and provenance.
• Scope approval to workload, data, users, boundary, runtime, and limitations.
• Treat quantization, prompt, runtime, or serving changes as possible behavior changes.
• Maintain rollback and an explicit retirement path.

Module outcome

You will produce a requirements and acceptance record, candidate comparison, license and provenance review, approved model package, release decision, and monitoring/update/retirement plan.