No matter what I do, I never seem to be able to create an effective filing system for myself. Whether I'm reading a book, surfing the Web, or browsing the newspaper, I'm constantly coming across items of interest that I'd love to be able to file away and reference again in the future. Problem is, whenever I try to do that, I end up with either a manila folder full of torn-out clippings, Post-it Notes, and scribbles that are too hard to decipher, or I have piles of stuff to be filed for later. Either way, identifying, categorizing, filing, searching and accessing important information is somehow a task that seems to elude my best efforts.

Luckily, I'm not implementing an SOA system around my office or house. Because if I did, such haphazard approaches would doom it to failure. In fact, that's why registries are so important to a solid SOA implementation. They help organizations achieve one of the key goals of any SOA system: reuse. At their most basic, SOA registries provide a standardized way to store, search and retrieve information on services. Essentially it's a dynamic catalog of information on SOA services, typically building on standards such as UDDI. SOA registries are also an important component for facilitating SOA governance.