how to use existing conda environment as a AzureML environment

Question

I have created a Azure Compute target and using the notebooks from it. I want to create a conda environment using Notebook Terminal and install my own packages and use it in AzureML experiment environment.

Answer 1

Fist make sure we install conda using Notebook Terminal.

We can create an environment from existing conda environment. This make it easy to reuse your local interactive environment in Azure ML remote runs. For example, if we've created conda environment using

conda create -n mycondaenv

We can create Azure ML environment out of that conda environment using

myenv = Environment.from_existing_conda_environment(name="myenv", conda_environment_name="mycondaenv")

Answer 2

I had the same question and the answer can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/how-to-access-terminal#add-new-kernels

The basic steps are:

• Create your conda environment with the terminal
• Activate the environment
• conda install pip
• conda install ipykernel
• python -m ipykernel install --user --name newenv --display-name "Python (newenv)"

After reloading the portal you can select the kernel in the list.