DreamWorks Animation deployed an internal machine learning model server called ForestFlow to manage the deployment and lifecycle of ML models used in its animation production pipeline, particularly for scheduling and optimizing rendering jobs. DreamWorks open-sourced ForestFlow in 2020 through the Linux Foundation AI project.

ForestFlow is a scalable, policy-based, cloud-native machine learning model server built by DreamWorks' principal architect Ahmad Alkilani to solve the challenge of moving ML models into production at scale. According to Alkilani, the system was developed because ML models affecting rendering job scheduling had a 'material impact' on the studio's bottom line, and keeping those models current as production data changed was a key operational need. ForestFlow supports automated model retraining triggers, A/B testing, canary deployments, and performance-based model routing. DreamWorks contributed ForestFlow to the LF AI Foundation as an open-source incubation project in April 2020.