Skip to content

docs: add concepts and defs to README.md #680

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Closed
Closed
Changes from all commits
Commits
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension

Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
25 changes: 24 additions & 1 deletion README.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -2,7 +2,30 @@
[![Go Reference](https://pkg.go.dev/badge/sigs.k8s.io/gateway-api-inference-extension.svg)](https://pkg.go.dev/sigs.k8s.io/gateway-api-inference-extension)
[![License](https://img.shields.io/github/license/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api-inference-extension)](/LICENSE)

# Gateway API Inference Extension
# Gateway API Inference Extension (GIE)

This project offers tools for AI Inference, enabling developers to build [Inference Gateways].

[Inference Gateways]:#concepts-and-definitions

## Concepts and Definitions

AI/ML is changing rapidly, and [Inference] goes beyond basic networking to include complex traffic routing and optimizations. Below are key terms used within this project:

- **Scheduler**: Makes decisions about which endpoint is optimal (best cost / best performance) for an inference request based on `Metrics and Capabilities` from [Model Serving](/docs/proposals/003-model-server-protocol/README.md).
- **Metrics and Capabilities**: Data provided by model serving platforms about performance, availability and capabilities to optimize routing. Includes things like [Prefix Cache] status or [LoRA Adapters] availability.
- **Endpoint Selector**: A `Scheduler` combined with `Metrics and Capabilities` systems is often referred to together as an [Endpoint Selection Extension] (this is also sometimes referred to as an "endpoint picker").
- **Inference Gateway**: A proxy/load-balancer which has been coupled with a `Endpoint Selector`. It provides optimized routing and load balancing for serving generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) workloads. It simplifies the deployment, management, and observability of AI inference workloads.

For deeper insights and more advanced concepts, refer to our [proposals](/docs/proposals).

[Inference]:https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/llm-inference-optimization
[Gateway API]:https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/gateway-api
[Prefix Cache]:https://docs.vllm.ai/en/stable/design/v1/prefix_caching.html
[LoRA Adapters]:https://docs.vllm.ai/en/stable/features/lora.html
[Endpoint Selection Extension]:https://gateway-api-inference-extension.sigs.k8s.io/#endpoint-selection-extension

## Technical Overview

This extension upgrades an [ext-proc](https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/configuration/http/http_filters/ext_proc_filter)-capable proxy or gateway - such as Envoy Gateway, kGateway, or the GKE Gateway - to become an **inference gateway** - supporting inference platform teams self-hosting large language models on Kubernetes. This integration makes it easy to expose and control access to your local [OpenAI-compatible chat completion endpoints](https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/chat) to other workloads on or off cluster, or to integrate your self-hosted models alongside model-as-a-service providers in a higher level **AI Gateway** like LiteLLM, Solo AI Gateway, or Apigee.

Expand Down