Introduction to Registry

A registry is a content store and a metadata repository. Various SOA artifacts such as services, WSDLs and configuration files can be stored in a registry, keyed by unique paths. A path is similar to a Unix file path. In WSO2 products, all configurations pertaining to modules, logging, security, datasources and other service groups are stored in the registry by default.

The Registry kernel of WSO2 products provide the basic registry and repository functionality and contains three major partitions as follows:

• Local Data Repository - Used to store settings/metadata specific to the product. This registry is not intended to be shared among multiple servers.
• Configuration Registry - Used to store product-specific configurations. These configurations can be shared across multiple instances of the same product like a cluster.
• Governance Registry - Used to store user-specified metadata and resources and can be shared across an organization. 

These registry instances are mounted to a single top level registry to provide a single, unified view. Mount points of the three registries are /_system/local, /_system/config and /_system/governance respectively. You can browse the contents of the registry used by the product through its management console as shown below.
 

All WSO2 products use the services provided by the Registry kernel to establish their own registry space, which is utilized for storing data and persisting configurations. Here are some of the features provided by the WSO2 Registry interface:

• Provides the facility to organize resources into collections.
• Maintains multiple versions of resources.
• Manages social aspects such as rating of resources.
• AtomPub interfaces to publish, view and manage resources from remote or non-Java clients.