batch-shipyard/recipes/Chainer-CPU

Chainer-CPU

This recipe shows how to run Chainer on a single node using CPU only.

Configuration

Please see refer to this set of sample configuration files for this recipe.

Pool Configuration

The pool configuration should enable the following properties:

• max_tasks_per_node must be set to 1 or omitted

Other pool properties such as publisher, offer, sku, vm_size and vm_count should be set to your desired values.

Global Configuration

The global configuration should set the following properties:

• docker_images array must have a reference to a valid Caffe CPU-enabled Docker image. The official chainer Docker image can be used for this recipe.

Jobs Configuration

The jobs configuration should set the following properties within the tasks array to run the MNIST MLP example. This array should have a task definition containing:

• docker_image should be the name of the Docker image for this container invocation, e.g., chainer/chainer
• resource_files array should be populated if you want Azure Batch to handle the download of the training file from the web endpoint:
  • file_path is the local file path which should be set to train_mnist.py
  • blob_source is the remote URL of the file to retrieve: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pfnet/chainer/master/examples/mnist/train_mnist.py
• command should contain the command to pass to the Docker run invocation. For the chainer/chainer Docker image and to run the MNIST MLP example, the command would be: python -u train_mnist.py

Note that you could have inlined the download in the command itself provided the Docker image has programs to fetch content from the required source.