  Serving deep learning (DL) models on relational data has become a critical
requirement across diverse commercial and scientific domains, sparking growing
interest recently. In this visionary paper, we embark on a comprehensive
exploration of representative architectures to address the requirement. We
highlight three pivotal paradigms: The state-of-the-artDL-Centricarchitecture
offloadsDL computations to dedicated DL frameworks. The potential UDF-Centric
architecture encapsulates one or more tensor computations into User Defined
Functions (UDFs) within the database system. The
potentialRelation-Centricarchitecture aims to represent a large-scale tensor
computation through relational operators. While each of these architectures
demonstrates promise in specific use scenarios, we identify urgent requirements
for seamless integration of these architectures and the middle ground between
these architectures. We delve into the gaps that impede the integration and
explore innovative strategies to close them. We present a pathway to establish
a novel database system for enabling a broad class of data-intensive DL
inference applications.
