[[["易于理解","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["解决了我的问题","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["其他","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["很难理解","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["信息或示例代码不正确","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["没有我需要的信息/示例","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["翻译问题","translationIssue","thumb-down"],["其他","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["最后更新时间 (UTC):2025-09-04。"],[],[],null,["# Before you begin\n\nBefore you start using Vector Search, you need to choose an embedding\nmodel, prepare your data, and decide what type of endpoint you'll use. This page\nprovides some information about doing those things.\n\nPrepare your embeddings\n-----------------------\n\nTo use Vector Search, you need to have your embeddings ready.\nIf you already have your embeddings, skip to [Choose an\nendpoint](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/setup/setup#choose-endpoint).\n\nTo create your embeddings, do the following:\n\n1. **Choose an embedding model**: There are many external embedding\n models available, which offer different features.\n\n Vector Search supports dense embeddings, sparse embeddings,\n and hybrid search. Hybrid search uses dense and\n sparse embeddings according to the weight that you specify for those\n embedding types.\n\n Depending on your use case, choose one of the following type of model:\n - **Ready-to-use** :\n If you want to semantically match text to text or text to images by the\n relevance of the text or image alone. This is a standard use case, so you\n don't need to train or tune the model.\n [Generative AI on Vertex AI](/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/embeddings/get-text-embeddings)\n is a recommended option for this use case. Generative AI on Vertex AI uses\n dense embedding models.\n\n - **Custom model for embeddings**: If you want to match based on\n your own data or specific use case.\n\n2. **Prepare your data**: Clean and preprocess your data to\n ensure that it's in a format that can be used by the embedding model.\n\n3. **Train the embedding model if you use a custom model** : If you choose to\n use a custom embeddings model (tuning), you need to train it on your data.\n This can be a time-consuming process that depends on the size and complexity\n of your data. If you use a pretrained model from the\n [Model Garden](/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/model-garden/explore-models),\n then you can skip this step.\n\n4. **Generate embeddings**: After the model is trained, use it to generate\n embeddings for your data.\n\nChoose an endpoint\n------------------\n\nAfter you have created your index, you'll deploy it to an endpoint. For\nmore information, see [Deploy and manage public index\nendpoints](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/deploy-index-public) and [Deploy and manage\nindex endpoints in a VPC network](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/deploy-index-vpc). It's\nhelpful to decide what kind of endpoint you'll need before you\ncreate your index.\n\nYou can deploy your query index to one of the following:\n\n- **Public endpoint**: If you deploy to a public endpoint, you don't need to\n set up your network. Public networks have slightly higher latency, but are\n faster to set up and easier to maintain.\n\n- **Private Endpoint**: If you want to use a VPC, you must first\n set up networking. Vector Search supports two types of private\n network.\n\n - [VPC Network Peering connection](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/setup/vpc)\n for reduced network latency.\n\n - [Private service\n connect](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/setup/private-service-connect)\n for private consumption of services across VPC\n networks that belong to different groups, teams, projects, or\n organizations.\n\nWhat's next\n-----------\n\nAfter you've generated your embeddings and decided where to deploy your\nindex, the next step is to configure your index.\n\n- Learn how to configure [input data format and structure](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/setup/format-structure)\n- Learn how to create a Vector Search index using [notebook tutorials](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/notebooks)\n- Learn how to [manage indexes](/vertex-ai/docs/vector-search/create-manage-index)"]]