<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title>PredictionIO - A Quick Intro</title><meta charset="utf-8"/><meta content="IE=edge,chrome=1" http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible"/><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"/><meta class="swiftype" name="title" data-type="string" content="PredictionIO - A Quick Intro"/><link rel="canonical" href="https://docs.prediction.io/start/"/><link href="/images/favicon/normal-b330020a.png" rel="shortcut icon"/><link href="/images/favicon/apple-c0febcf2.png" rel="apple-touch-icon"/><link href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Open+Sans:300italic,400italic,600italic,700italic,800italic,400,300,600,700,800" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.2.0/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="/stylesheets/application-3598c7d7.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/><script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/html5shiv/3.7.2/html5shiv.min.js"></script><script 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src="/images/icons/search-glass-704bd4ff.png"/></div></div></div></header><div id="search-bar-row-wrapper"><div class="container-fluid" id="search-bar-row"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-9 col-sm-11 col-xs-11"><div class="hidden-md hidden-lg" id="mobile-page-heading-wrapper"><p>PredictionIO Docs</p><h4>A Quick Intro</h4></div><h4 class="hidden-sm hidden-xs">PredictionIO Docs</h4></div><div class="col-md-3 col-sm-1 col-xs-1 hidden-md hidden-lg"><img id="left-menu-indicator" src="/images/icons/down-arrow-dfe9f7fe.png"/></div><div class="col-md-3 col-sm-12 col-xs-12 swiftype-wrapper"><div class="swiftype"><form class="search-form"><img class="search-box-toggler hidden-xs hidden-sm" src="/images/icons/search-glass-704bd4ff.png"/><div class="search-box"><img src="/images/icons/search-glass-704bd4ff.png"/><input type="text" id="st-search-input" class="st-search-input" placeholder="Search Doc..."/></div><img class="swiftype-row-hider hidden-md hidden-lg" src="/images/icons/drawer-toggle-active-fcbef12a.png"/></form></div></div><div class="mobile-left-menu-toggler hidden-md hidden-lg"></div></div></div></div><div id="page" class="container-fluid"><div class="row"><div id="left-menu-wrapper" class="col-md-3"><nav id="nav-main"><ul><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="/"><span>Apache PredictionIO (incubating) Documentation</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/"><span>Welcome to Apache PredictionIO (incubating)</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Getting Started</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final active" href="/start/"><span>A Quick Intro</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/install/"><span>Installing Apache PredictionIO (incubating)</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/start/download/"><span>Downloading an Engine Template</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/start/deploy/"><span>Deploying Your First Engine</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/start/customize/"><span>Customizing the Engine</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Integrating with Your App</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/appintegration/"><span>App Integration Overview</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="expandible" href="/sdk/"><span>List of SDKs</span></a><ul><li class="level-3"><a class="final" href="/sdk/java/"><span>Java & Android SDK</span></a></li><li class="level-3"><a class="final" href="/sdk/php/"><span>PHP SDK</span></a></li><li class="level-3"><a class="final" href="/sdk/python/"><span>Python SDK</span></a></li><li class="level-3"><a class="final" href="/sdk/ruby/"><span>Ruby SDK</span></a></li><li class="level-3"><a class="final" href="/sdk/community/"><span>Community Powered SDKs</span></a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Deploying an Engine</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/deploy/"><span>Deploying as a Web Service</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/cli/#engine-commands"><span>Engine Command-line Interface</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/deploy/engineparams/"><span>Setting Engine Parameters</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/deploy/enginevariants/"><span>Deploying Multiple Engine Variants</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Customizing an Engine</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/customize/"><span>Learning DASE</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/customize/dase/"><span>Implement DASE</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/customize/troubleshooting/"><span>Troubleshooting Engine Development</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/api/current/#package"><span>Engine Scala APIs</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Collecting and Analyzing Data</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/datacollection/"><span>Event Server Overview</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/cli/#event-server-commands"><span>Event Server Command-line Interface</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/datacollection/eventapi/"><span>Collecting Data with REST/SDKs</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/datacollection/eventmodel/"><span>Events Modeling</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/datacollection/webhooks/"><span>Unifying Multichannel Data with Webhooks</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/datacollection/channel/"><span>Channel</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/datacollection/batchimport/"><span>Importing Data in Batch</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/datacollection/analytics/"><span>Using Analytics Tools</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Choosing an Algorithm(s)</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/algorithm/"><span>Built-in Algorithm Libraries</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/algorithm/switch/"><span>Switching to Another Algorithm</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/algorithm/multiple/"><span>Combining Multiple Algorithms</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/algorithm/custom/"><span>Adding Your Own Algorithms</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>ML Tuning and Evaluation</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/evaluation/"><span>Overview</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/evaluation/paramtuning/"><span>Hyperparameter Tuning</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/evaluation/evaluationdashboard/"><span>Evaluation Dashboard</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/evaluation/metricchoose/"><span>Choosing Evaluation Metrics</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/evaluation/metricbuild/"><span>Building Evaluation Metrics</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>System Architecture</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/system/"><span>Architecture Overview</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/system/anotherdatastore/"><span>Using Another Data Store</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Engine Template Gallery</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="http://templates.prediction.io"><span>Browse</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/community/submit-template/"><span>Submit your Engine as a Template</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Demo Tutorials</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/demo/tapster/"><span>Comics Recommendation Demo</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/demo/community/"><span>Community Contributed Demo</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/demo/textclassification/"><span>Text Classification Engine Tutorial</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="/community/"><span>Getting Involved</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/community/contribute-code/"><span>Contribute Code</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/community/contribute-documentation/"><span>Contribute Documentation</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/community/contribute-sdk/"><span>Contribute a SDK</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/community/contribute-webhook/"><span>Contribute a Webhook</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/community/projects/"><span>Community Projects</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Getting Help</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/resources/faq/"><span>FAQs</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/support/"><span>Community Support</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/support/#enterprise-support"><span>Enterprise Support</span></a></li></ul></li><li class="level-1"><a class="expandible" href="#"><span>Resources</span></a><ul><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/resources/intellij/"><span>Developing Engines with IntelliJ IDEA</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/resources/upgrade/"><span>Upgrade Instructions</span></a></li><li class="level-2"><a class="final" href="/resources/glossary/"><span>Glossary</span></a></li></ul></li></ul></nav></div><div class="col-md-9 col-sm-12"><div class="content-header hidden-md hidden-lg"><div id="breadcrumbs" class="hidden-sm hidden xs"><ul><li><a href="#">Getting Started</a><span class="spacer">&gt;</span></li><li><span class="last">A Quick Intro</span></li></ul></div><div id="page-title"><h1>PredictionIO - A Quick Intro</h1></div></div><div id="table-of-content-wrapper"><h5>On this page</h5><aside id="table-of-contents"><ul> <li> <a href="#overview">Overview</a> </li> <li> <a href="#event-server">Event Server</a> </li> <li> <a href="#engine">Engine</a> </li> </ul> </aside><hr/><a id="edit-page-link" href="https://github.com/apache/incubator-predictionio/tree/livedoc/docs/manual/source/start/index.html.md"><img src="/images/icons/edit-pencil-d6c1bb3d.png"/>Edit this page</a></div><div class="content-header hidden-sm hidden-xs"><div id="breadcrumbs" class="hidden-sm hidden xs"><ul><li><a href="#">Getting Started</a><span class="spacer">&gt;</span></li><li><span class="last">A Quick Intro</span></li></ul></div><div id="page-title"><h1>PredictionIO - A Quick Intro</h1></div></div><div class="content"><h2 id='overview' class='header-anchors'>Overview</h2><p>PredictionIO consist of the following components:</p> <ul> <li><strong>PredictionIO platform</strong> - our open source machine learning stack for building, evaluating and deploying engines with machine learning algorithms.</li> <li><strong>Event Server</strong> - our open source machine learning analytics layer for unifying events from multiple platforms</li> <li><strong>Template Gallery</strong> - the place for you to download engine templates for different type of machine learning applications</li> </ul> <p><img alt="PredictionIO Overview" src="/images/overview-multiengines-b703caac.png"/></p><h2 id='event-server' class='header-anchors'>Event Server</h2><p>In a common scenario, PredictionIO&#39;s <strong>Event Server</strong> continuously collects data from your application. A PredictionIO <strong>engine</strong> then builds predictive model(s) with one or more algorithms using the data. After it is deployed as a web service, it listens to queries from your application and respond with predicted results in real-time.</p><p><img alt="PredictionIO Single Engine Overview" src="/images/overview-singleengine-0a99200d.png"/></p><p><a href="/datacollection/">Event Server</a> collects data from your application, in real-time or in batch. It can also unify data that are related to your application from multiple platforms. After data is collected, it mainly serves two purposes:</p> <ol> <li>Provide data to Engine(s) for model training and evaluation</li> <li>Offer a unified view for data analysis</li> </ol> <p>Like a database server, Event Server can host multiple applications. Data are separated for each application by a unique <em>app_name</em>.</p><p>Once Event Server is launched, you can send data to a specific <em>app_name</em>, identified by an Access Key, through its <a href="/datacollection/eventapi/">Event API</a> with HTTP requests or with <a href="/sdk/">one of the SDKs</a>.</p><p>In some special case, you may want your engine to read data from another datastore instead of Event Server. It can be achieved by <a href="#">making some modifications</a>.</p><h2 id='engine' class='header-anchors'>Engine</h2><p>Engine is responsible for making prediction. It contains one or more machine learning algorithms. An engine reads training data and build predictive model(s). It is then deployed as a web service. A deployed engine responds to prediction queries from your application through REST API in real-time.</p><p>PredictionIO&#39;s <a href="http://templates.prediction.io/">template gallery</a> offers Engine Templates for all kinds of machine learning tasks. You can easily create one or more engines from these templates .</p><p>The components of a template, namely <strong>Data Source</strong>, <strong>Data Preparator</strong>, <strong>Algorithm(s)</strong>, and <strong>Serving</strong>, are all <a href="/start/customize/">customizable</a> for your specific needs.</p></div></div></div></div><footer><div class="container"><div class="seperator"></div><div class="row"><div class="col-md-6 col-xs-6 footer-link-column"><div class="footer-link-column-row"><h4>Community</h4><ul><li><a href="//docs.prediction.io/install/" target="blank">Download</a></li><li><a href="//docs.prediction.io/" target="blank">Docs</a></li><li><a href="//github.com/apache/incubator-predictionio" target="blank">GitHub</a></li><li><a href="mailto:user-subscribe@predictionio.incubator.apache.org" target="blank">Subscribe to User Mailing List</a></li><li><a href="//stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/predictionio" target="blank">Stackoverflow</a></li></ul></div></div><div class="col-md-6 col-xs-6 footer-link-column"><div class="footer-link-column-row"><h4>Contribute</h4><ul><li><a href="//predictionio.incubator.apache.org/community/contribute-code/" target="blank">Contribute</a></li><li><a href="//github.com/apache/incubator-predictionio" target="blank">Source Code</a></li><li><a href="//issues.apache.org/jira/browse/PIO" target="blank">Bug Tracker</a></li><li><a href="mailto:dev-subscribe@predictionio.incubator.apache.org" target="blank">Subscribe to Development Mailing List</a></li></ul></div></div></div></div><div id="footer-bottom"><div class="container"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-12"><div id="footer-logo-wrapper"><img alt="PredictionIO" src="/images/logos/logo-white-d1e9c6e6.png"/></div><div id="social-icons-wrapper"><a class="github-button" href="https://github.com/apache/incubator-predictionio" data-style="mega" data-count-href="/apache/incubator-predictionio/stargazers" data-count-api="/repos/apache/incubator-predictionio#stargazers_count" data-count-aria-label="# stargazers on GitHub" aria-label="Star apache/incubator-predictionio on GitHub">Star</a> <a class="github-button" href="https://github.com/apache/incubator-predictionio/fork" data-icon="octicon-git-branch" data-style="mega" data-count-href="/apache/incubator-predictionio/network" data-count-api="/repos/apache/incubator-predictionio#forks_count" data-count-aria-label="# forks on GitHub" aria-label="Fork apache/incubator-predictionio on GitHub">Fork</a> <script id="github-bjs" async="" defer="" src="https://buttons.github.io/buttons.js"></script><a href="//www.facebook.com/predictionio" target="blank"><img alt="PredictionIO on Twitter" src="/images/icons/twitter-ea9dc152.png"/></a> <a href="//twitter.com/predictionio" target="blank"><img alt="PredictionIO on Facebook" src="/images/icons/facebook-5c57939c.png"/></a> </div></div></div></div></div></footer></div><script>(function(w,d,t,u,n,s,e){w['SwiftypeObject']=n;w[n]=w[n]||function(){
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