Malte Pietsch, co-founder & CTO of Deepset, discusses the importance of orchestration frameworks for LLM applications, the usage patterns of the Haystack framework, and optimizing RAG applications with metadata and knowledge graphs. They also explore the evolution of data engineering pipelines, real-time indexing, and the highlights and features of Haystack 2.0.
Haystack 2.0 is being redesigned to offer more customizability and ease of use for building pipelines, introducing loops, branching, and parallel branches for greater flexibility.
Haystack 2.0 will address monitoring and robustness by integrating with open telemetry for tracing and providing async execution for scaling OpenAI efficiently, ensuring it can handle scale and latency challenges with ease in production environments.
Deep dives
Haystack 2.0: Customizability and Ease of Use
Haystack 2.0 is being redesigned to offer more customizability and ease of use for building pipelines. The update will introduce loops, branching, and parallel branches for greater flexibility in creating pipelines. It will also make it easier to create custom nodes, allowing users to connect to specific data sources or implement customized retriever mechanisms. The goal is to provide a framework that is both highly customizable and beginner-friendly, with simpler paths for getting started and a clear progression to advanced usage.
Monitoring and Robustness in Haystack 2.0
Haystack 2.0 will address monitoring and robustness by integrating with open telemetry for tracing and providing async execution for scaling OpenAI efficiently. The update will enable users to trace pipeline execution, monitor calls, and improve the overall reliability of the framework. This is particularly important for production environments, ensuring that Haystack can handle scale and latency challenges with ease.
The Haystack Community: Diverse and Active
The Haystack community is a mix of tech giants, enterprises, and startups. Users and contributors from companies like Netflix, Nvidia, banks, pharmaceuticals, and media organizations actively use and contribute to Haystack. Deepset is not the sole driving force behind the community, with many contributions coming from external users. The diverse community ensures a vibrant and collaborative environment for the development and improvement of Haystack.
The Future of Vector Databases and Haystack's Role
The future of vector databases lies in providing more than just vector search capabilities. Existing databases, such as Postgres, Elastic, and MongoDB, are adding vector search features, making it easier for users to incorporate vector search into their existing systems. The value of a dedicated vector database depends on the specific use case and the need for specialized functionality beyond search. Haystack is focused on providing a solid foundation for orchestration, customization, ease of use, and robustness, catering to a range of use cases in the evolving landscape of vector search.