MLflow holds a wide lead across enterprise model registry questions, frequently recommended for flexible, open-source model lifecycle management. Databricks Unity Catalog matches it closely on questions focused on centralized governance, immutable artifacts, and promotion approvals.
Since July, MLflowrising, Amazon SageMakerrising, and Databricks Unity Catalogrising have gained broader visibility across the market. Weights & Biasesfalling is now named occasionally rather than regularly for centralized predictive model governance.
Latest insights
Week of Sep 21–27 · Since Jul 5
MLflow Gap between platforms: A 9.1-point platform gap for MLflow in Enterprise MLOps Model Registry Platforms: ChatGPT Search 100%, Google AI Mode 90.9%
Amazon SageMaker Gap between platforms: Amazon SageMaker's platform gap in Enterprise MLOps Model Registry Platforms widened: ChatGPT Search 81.8%, Google AI Mode 54.5%
Azure Machine Learning Gap between platforms: The platform gap for Azure Machine Learning in Enterprise MLOps Model Registry Platforms narrowed to 18.2 points, ChatGPT Search ahead
Azure Machine Learning Gaining: Azure Machine Learning ranked #7 in Enterprise MLOps Model Registry Platforms last week and #6 this week
Hugging Face Hub Slipping: Hugging Face Hub now ranks #10 in Enterprise MLOps Model Registry Platforms, down from #9
54% of citations point at the ranked brands’ own sites. medium.com, youtube.com, aimultiple.com are the most-cited sites outside the ranked brands’ own domains.
For managing embedding models and their deployments, I’d start with MLflow for the best all-around, flexible MLOps foundation, especially if you need model versioning, experiment tracking, lineage, evaluation, and deployment workflows without committing your entire stack to one cloud. If your priority is deploying and scaling embedding models with minimal infrastructure work, Hugging Face Inference Endpoints is also a strong candidate.
One important distinction: managing the embedding model is not the same as managing the vector database. You need to track model versions, embedding dimensions, preprocessing, evaluation quality, and serving deployments together so that a model upgrade doesn't silently break retrieval from your existing vector index.
My shortlist
1. MLflow — Best overall for model lifecycle management
I'm looking for an MLOps solution that specializes in handling the lifecycle of embedding models. Which platforms offer the strongest tools for deploying and managing these specific types of models?
3. Amazon SageMaker AI — Best for AWS-centric enterprises
Best if your embedding workloads already run on AWS and you want integrated governance and deployment automation.
Central model registry with versioning and lineage.
Approval workflows and automated deployment pipelines.
Integration with AWS infrastructure, permissions, and monitoring tools.
Limitation: AWS ecosystem commitment and operational complexity can be higher than with a lightweight, portable stack. Also check current monitoring-service availability before choosing specific components.
4. Weights & Biases — Best for experimentation and evaluation
A strong candidate when your team is frequently testing embedding models, comparing experiments, and collaborating on evaluation results.
Experiment tracking and comparisons.
Dataset and model-development workflows.
Collaborative visualization and evaluation.
Limitation: if deployment lifecycle management is your primary need, validate registry, serving, and rollout capabilities against your requirements rather than assuming it replaces a dedicated production platform.
Versioning · lineage · approvals · production aliases
Embedding inference service
Hugging Face TEI, a cloud-native endpoint, or your existing serving stack
Vector database and retrieval evaluation
Index compatibility · latency · recall · quality monitoring
The most important operational safeguard is to version the entire embedding configuration, not just the model weights. Record the model identifier and revision, embedding dimensions, normalization settings, preprocessing, and evaluation results. When dimensions or embedding spaces change, you may need to rebuild the vector index and migrate traffic rather than simply swapping the model endpoint.
One question to narrow down the winner
Where do you primarily deploy your embedding models today?
1. Your deployment environment
AWS / SageMaker
Google Cloud / Vertex AI
Azure
Databricks
Multi-cloud or self-hosted Kubernetes
Mostly Hugging Face models and endpoints
2. Your biggest management challenge
Versioning, governance, promotion, and rollback
Deployment, scaling, latency, and cost
Embedding quality, retrieval accuracy, and evaluation
Central inventory of models, versions, and deployments
Managing embedding models, vector lifecycles, and synchronization requires a platform that bridges traditional MLOps (model registry and serving) with data engineering (feature/vector stores and automated pipelines).
Databricks treats embeddings as a first-class data and model citizen by tightly coupling data pipelines, embedding model endpoints, and vector search indexes.
Key Features:
Automated Embedding Generation: You can configure a vector index to point at a source text column in a Delta Lake table and select a managed embedding model; Databricks automatically computes and updates the vector representations.
Unity Catalog Governance: Tracks lineage, access controls, and permissions for both the source data and the resulting vector indexes.
If you prefer an open-source or multi-cloud architecture without heavy vendor lock-in, MLflow handles embedding tracking, tracing, and model packaging seamlessly.[](https://mlflow.org/llmops/)
Key Features:
Unified Model Registry: Version control for embedding models alongside your standard ML and LLM models.
MLflow Tracing: Automatically logs and instruments calls to embedding models and vector databases (like Chroma, FAISS, or Pinecone) to track latency, token usage, and retrieval behavior.
Auto-Syncing Datasets: Look for platforms that can automatically re-index or stream updates from your primary database/lakehouse directly to your vector index without manual batch re-embedding scripts.[](https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/ai-search/ai-search)
To help narrow down the ideal platform, tell me:
Are you looking for an open-source stack or a fully managed cloud service (like AWS, Databricks, or GCP)?
Where do your source documents and vector databases currently live?
The platforms offering the strongest lifecycle management tools for embedding models areDatabricks (with MLflow and Unity Catalog), Amazon SageMaker , and specialized vector database ecosystems like Qdrant and Pinecone which handle downstream embedding versioning and re-indexing. While traditional MLOps tools handle general deep learning artifacts, embedding model lifecycles uniquely require coordinating continuous re-indexing, synchronization with vector databases, and managing dimensionality or encoder swaps.[](https://www.techrxiv.org/doi/10.36227/techrxiv.175303721.17450204)
Top Platforms for Embedding Model Management
Databricks / MLflow: Combines MLflow for tracking fine-tuned embedding runs and logging custom transformer signatures with Unity Catalog for governance. It bridges data pipelines and vector storage effectively for large-scale enterprise data.
Amazon SageMaker: Offers robust endpoints via SageMaker JumpStart or Triton Inference Server for high-throughput, low-latency embedding generation, alongside SageMaker Clarify for monitoring data drift in feature spaces.
Qdrant: A vector database that uniquely treats embedding lifecycle management as a first-class citizen, supporting payload-based versioning, real-time re-indexing, and alias management so you can hot-swap embedding models with minimal downtime.
Pinecone: Provides serverless vector database infrastructure that integrates smoothly with modern embedding providers (like OpenAI, Cohere, or Hugging Face pipelines), handling index migrations and namespace updates cleanly.
Vertex AI (Google Cloud): Features managed embedding APIs and matching engine infrastructure, streamlining the transition from text/image inputs straight into high-dimensional vector representations.
Platform
Core Strength for Embeddings
Best Suited For
Databricks / MLflow
Unified registry and Spark-scale batch embedding generation
Large enterprise data lakehouses
Amazon SageMaker
Scalable real-time endpoints and high-throughput hosting
AWS-native production pipelines
Qdrant
Zero-downtime model hot-swapping and re-indexing
To help narrow down the ideal platform, tell me:
Are you using pre-trained embeddings (e.g., OpenAI, Cohere) or fine-tuning custom models?
What vector database or data sink are you targeting?
If your focus is specifically the lifecycle of embedding models—not merely generic ML deployment—the strongest options I’d shortlist are Databricks/MLflow, Amazon SageMaker, Hugging Face, and Google Vertex AI. The important distinction is that embedding workloads need more than model versioning: you also want reproducible embedding generation, evaluation across model versions, low-latency/high-throughput serving, and monitoring for changes that can affect downstream retrieval.
If the goal is one enterprise-wide system of record for predictive/ML models plus governance, my recommendation is:
Best overall: Databricks Unity Catalog + MLflow
Databricks is the strongest choice if you want a production-grade model registry that also participates in broader data/AI governance.
Databricks' current architecture combines the MLflow Model Registry with Unity Catalog. Unity Catalog provides centralized access control, auditing, lineage, discovery, and cross-workspace governance, while MLflow handles model versions, metadata, metrics, aliases, and lifecycle management.
Databricks explicitly recommends Models in Unity Catalog for governing and deploying models, and its current MLflow 3 setup uses the Unity Catalog registry by default.
My enterprise shortlist
Platform
Registry
Governance
Multi-platform
Best fit
Databricks + Unity Catalog/MLflow
★★★★★
★★★★★
★★★★☆
Best overall
The important distinction
There are really two different products you might mean by "model registry and governance."
1. Technical model registry
"Where is model v37? What data/run produced it? Has it passed validation? Can production deploy it?"
→ MLflow / Databricks Unity Catalog is my first choice.
2. Enterprise AI governance registry
"What models exist across the entire company? Who owns them? What business process do they support? What risk tier are they? Who approved them? What policies apply?"
→ Collibra AI Command Center or ModelOp become particularly compelling.
Collibra's current AI Command Center provides a centralized registry spanning AI use cases, models and agents, with governance context, lifecycle status, risk/compliance information and integrations across platforms including SageMaker, Azure ML, Databricks and MLflow.
ModelOp takes a similar "AI system of record" approach, explicitly positioning itself above existing development/execution platforms and inventorying ML, GenAI, agentic and third-party AI systems.
What I'd implement
For a typical large enterprise, I'd use a two-layer architecture rather than trying to make one product do everything:
Model development → MLflow → Unity Catalog → deployment
with
Enterprise AI governance → Collibra/ModelOp → federated metadata from MLflow, SageMaker, Azure ML, etc.
That avoids turning the governance catalog into the actual artifact store while giving the enterprise a single inventory across heterogeneous ML platforms.
If you're primarily a Databricks shop, I'd skip the additional governance product initially and make Unity Catalog + MLflow the central registry. It already provides centralized model access control, auditing, lineage and discovery across workspaces.
If you're multi-cloud / highly regulated, I'd shortlist Collibra vs. ModelOp for the governance layer and MLflow/Unity Catalog for the technical registry.
For comparison, AWS SageMaker's registry is very strong for AWS-native MLOps—it supports versioning, metadata, lineage, approval status, staging and CI/CD deployment—but its natural center of gravity is the AWS ecosystem. docs.aws.amazon.com Azure ML similarly provides centralized registries that can share models across workspaces and regions.
Bottom line:
🥇 Best overall technical registry: Databricks Unity Catalog + MLflow
🥇 Best enterprise-wide governance/catalog: Collibra AI Command Center
🥇 Best dedicated AI governance/control plane: ModelOp
🥇 Best AWS-native: SageMaker Model Registry
🥇 Best open/flexible foundation: MLflow
If you tell me whether your stack is AWS, Azure, GCP, Databricks, Snowflake, or multi-cloud, I can narrow this to a 2–3 vendor recommendation with architecture, governance capabilities, and likely implementation complexity.
Choosing the "best" enterprise model registry and governance tool depends heavily on your current cloud infrastructure, regulatory environment, and whether you need deep collaborative workflows or pure technical artifact tracking.[](https://valohai.com/blog/mlflow-vs-enterprise-mlops/)
The enterprise landscape breaks down into four leading solutions, each suited for different organizational needs:
MLflow (Unity Catalog / Databricks / Open Source) : The industry standard for lightweight, code-first model registry and artifact tracking.
Best for : Technical data science teams looking for an open standard with immutable versioning and lineage tracking.
Enterprise consideration : Open-source MLflow lacks native multi-user approval workflows and collaboration sign-offs, but when paired with Databricks Unity Catalog , it gains robust enterprise governance, access controls, and auditing.[](]()]()
Our team is looking for a robust platform to manage and govern our predictive models at scale. Can you recommend a top-tier enterprise model registry?
Top-tier enterprise model registries and governance platforms vary by your primary infrastructure needs:
MLflow (via Databricks Unity Catalog): Best for data-heavy teams needing deep open-source flexibility paired with robust enterprise governance . It offers centralized model stores, version lineage, lifecycle stage aliases (like ), and unified access control across multi-cloud workspaces. Explore details on the AI Platform.[](]()]()
Best for: Enterprise teams managing large-scale Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines where embeddings need to stay perpetually synchronized with fast-changing underlying data.
Best for:
Advanced vector-search architectures
Google Vertex AI
Native multi-modal embedding APIs and matching engine
Databricks's MLflow stack is particularly compelling when embeddings are part of a larger RAG/search system.
MLflow's Model Registry provides versioning, lineage, aliases, metadata and rollback-oriented lifecycle management. Databricks additionally integrates model lifecycle management with Unity Catalog and model serving.
The important advantage for embeddings is that you can treat an embedding model as a governed production artifact while tracking the surrounding code, data and evaluation process. Databricks' documented ML lifecycle explicitly covers evaluation → registration → deployment → monitoring/retraining.
I'd look here first if: your embedding model feeds Databricks Vector Search, RAG, recommendations, semantic search, or a large data platform.
2. Amazon SageMaker AI — strongest enterprise deployment controls
Amazon Web Services's SageMaker AI is excellent if the difficult part is operationalizing many versions of embedding models safely.
Its Model Registry handles versions, metadata, lineage, approval states and deployment. Approved versions can be automatically promoted through MLOps pipelines.
For production rollout, SageMaker supports shadow testing plus blue/green and canary deployment, which is particularly valuable when changing an embedding model could alter millions of downstream vector representations.
It also provides Model Monitor and endpoint monitoring for production systems.
I'd choose it if: you're AWS-native and care about formal promotion/approval, CI/CD, deployment controls and enterprise governance.
3. Hugging Face — particularly strong for the embedding-model layer
Hugging Face stands out because embeddings are much closer to its core model ecosystem.
Its managed Inference Endpoints explicitly support Sentence Transformers and, importantly, Text Embeddings Inference (TEI).
You can deploy a particular model revision, select CPU/GPU/Inferentia infrastructure, autoscale, pause/scale to zero, and manage endpoints programmatically.
That makes it unusually attractive when your lifecycle looks like:
Hugging Face model → evaluate candidate embedding models → pin revision → deploy → benchmark latency/throughput → promote → roll back.
The tradeoff is that HF is more specialized around the model + inference portion of the lifecycle than around a complete enterprise MLOps governance system.
Google Cloud Vertex AI's Model Registry provides version control, ML metadata, evaluation, validation and deployment capabilities.
It's a sensible choice when embeddings are closely connected to BigQuery, Vertex AI, or other GCP-native data/ML infrastructure.
I'd put it ahead of building a bespoke stack if your organization is already standardized on GCP, but I wouldn't choose it solely because the model happens to be an embedding model.
One important consideration: don't monitor embeddings like ordinary classifiers
For an embedding lifecycle, I'd make these capabilities explicit requirements:
Model/revision versioning — exact weights, tokenizer, configuration and inference engine.
Embedding compatibility metadata — dimension, normalization, distance metric and preprocessing.
Corpus/model compatibility testing — a new model can change the geometry of your entire vector space.
Shadow/canary deployment — compare candidate embeddings against production before switching.
Embedding drift monitoring — distribution changes, norm distributions, nearest-neighbor behavior and retrieval quality.
Re-embedding orchestration — the ability to regenerate an existing corpus when changing models.
Vector-index lifecycle management — version the index alongside the embedding model.
Rollback — ideally model and corresponding vector index, not just the model endpoint.
That last point is crucial: an embedding model version and the vectors it generated are effectively a coupled artifact. Simply rolling an endpoint back to an older model doesn't necessarily fix a corpus that has already been re-embedded with the newer model.
My practical shortlist
Most complete MLOps + RAG/data-platform workflow: Databricks + MLflow
Most mature enterprise deployment/governance controls: SageMaker AI
Most embedding/open-source-model-centric serving experience: Hugging Face
Best fit when already standardized on GCP: Vertex AI
If you're building this from scratch, I'd also consider an architecture where MLflow handles model/evaluation/version lifecycle while Hugging Face TEI handles high-performance embedding inference. MLflow's model format is designed to avoid locking deployment to a single serving target.
If you tell me your cloud (AWS/GCP/Azure/on-prem), embedding model family (e.g. BGE, E5, Cohere, OpenAI), vector DB, and scale (vectors/queries per day), I can narrow this to a concrete architecture and compare the deployment/monitoring tradeoffs.
Dataiku Govern : An end-to-end platform where governance is baked into the core operating system rather than added as an afterthought.
Best for : Cross-functional teams (risk, legal, and data science) requiring structured approval chains, project lineage, and risk classification matrices.
Enterprise consideration : Excellent for highly regulated industries needing formal sign-off workflows and audit trails before a model hits production.
DataRobot : An enterprise AI platform featuring elite compliance, auditing, and explainability mechanisms.
Best for : Highly regulated sectors (banking, insurance, healthcare) where every predictive decision must be fully explained, audited, and monitored for bias.
Enterprise consideration : Highly structured and automated, though it operates best if you use its broader ecosystem rather than just as a detached registry.
Cloud-Native Managed Services (AWS SageMaker Model Registry, Azure Machine Learning, Google Vertex AI Model Registry) : Deeply integrated cloud platforms.
Best for : Enterprises heavily locked into a single cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP) who want zero infrastructure overhead.
Amazon SageMaker Model Registry: Best for organizations heavily locked into the AWS ecosystem. It provides native lineage tracking, approval workflows for model deployment, and multi-account/multi-region model promotion. Review capabilities via AWS SageMaker.
For an enterprise team managing predictive models at scale, my top recommendation is Databricks Models in Unity Catalog, powered by MLflow Model Registry—particularly if you need centralized governance, model lineage, access controls, and lifecycle management across multiple teams.
The key distinction is that an enterprise model registry should do more than store model files. It should help you control which models are approved for production, trace how they were built, manage versions, and provide an auditable record of their lifecycle.
Databricks integrates its MLflow-based registry with Unity Catalog for centralized access control, auditing, lineage, and model discovery across workspaces.
Top enterprise model registry platforms
1. Databricks Models in Unity Catalog
(Best overall)
Best for: Enterprise-wide model governance across teams.
Centralized access control, audit logs, lineage, and model discovery.
MLflow compatibility for model tracking and version management.
Strong integration with data and AI asset governance.
Trade-off: Best value when Databricks is already a core part of your data and ML platform.
Official documentation:
2. Amazon SageMaker AI Model Registry
Best for: AWS-centric organizations and controlled production releases.
Model versions, metadata, lineage, and lifecycle stages.
Explicit approval and rejection workflows.
Integration with CI/CD pipelines to automate production deployment after approval.
Trade-off: Most natural fit when your infrastructure and security controls are built around AWS.
Official documentation:
3. Azure Machine Learning Registry
Best for: Microsoft-first enterprises with separate development, testing, and production environments.
Centrally stores models and reusable ML assets.
Shares assets across workspaces and supported regions.
Supports cross-workspace promotion and lineage back to training jobs.
Trade-off: The experience is most cohesive when integrated with your Azure environment.
Official documentation:
4. Google Vertex AI Model Registry
Best for: Google Cloud-native ML teams.
Central model catalog with versioning and metadata.
Model aliases for identifying stable, staging, or production versions.
Integrated model evaluation and deployment workflows.
Trade-off: Most compelling when your training and deployment workflows already use Vertex AI.
Official documentation:
5. MLflow Model Registry
Best for: Teams prioritizing portability and control over their infrastructure.
Open-source model tracking, versioning, and lifecycle management.
Works across a range of ML frameworks and infrastructure environments.
Can be self-hosted or used through managed offerings.
Trade-off: A self-hosted deployment requires you to implement or integrate enterprise-grade identity, governance, and operational controls.
Official website:
How I would choose
Your priority
Recommended platform
Enterprise-wide governance and lineage
Databricks + Unity Catalog
Formal production approval workflows on AWS
SageMaker Model Registry
Microsoft ecosystem and cross-workspace sharing
Azure ML Registry
Google Cloud-native model lifecycle
Vertex AI Model Registry
Portability and reduced platform dependence
MLflow
These are fit-based recommendations, not a universal performance ranking. Actual suitability depends on your security requirements, existing infrastructure, and operational needs.
What to require in your evaluation
Before selecting a platform, validate these six capabilities in a proof of concept:
Versioning and reproducibility: Can you trace every production model to its code, training data, dependencies, and evaluation results?
Governance: Can you restrict who registers, approves, promotes, and deploys models?
Auditability: Are model changes, approvals, and deployment decisions recorded?
Lifecycle automation: Can quality gates prevent a model from reaching production until it meets your requirements?
Scale and discovery: Can multiple teams search, share, and manage hundreds or thousands of models?
Monitoring and rollback: Can you identify degraded models and reliably return to a previously approved version?
My recommendation for your team
Start by evaluating Databricks + Unity Catalog, SageMaker Model Registry, and Azure ML Registry against your requirements. Add Vertex AI if Google Cloud is your primary environment, or standalone MLflow if cloud portability is a major requirement.
One question would help me narrow this to the strongest fit: Which cloud or ML infrastructure does your team primarily use today—AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Databricks, or a hybrid/on-premises environment?
For enterprise ML platforms that need approval-gated promotion, model lineage, and rollback across cloud and on-premises deployments, I’d shortlist five options: MLflow with enterprise governance, ClearML, Kubeflow Model Registry, NVIDIA AI Enterprise’s NGC model-management ecosystem, and cloud-native registries such as Amazon SageMaker AI Model Registry.
The key distinction is whether a product merely records approval status or actually prevents unauthorized promotion. You also need to distinguish a registry's ability to track versions from the deployment platform's ability to roll back a running service.
Enterprise model registry shortlist
1. MLflow Model Registry — best flexible, portable foundation
(Strong overall fit)
Supports model versioning, training-run lineage, aliases, metadata, and returning consumers to a previous version. Self-hosted MLflow can support hybrid deployments, while Databricks adds centralized governance and access controls.
Approval caveat: You must configure authorization and CI/CD policy gates to require approval before promotion; version tags alone do not enforce that rule.
2. ClearML Enterprise — strong self-hosted and hybrid candidate
Offers model cataloging, provenance and lineage, model lifecycle visibility, and CI/CD triggers. Enterprise access rules can restrict who may read or modify model resources, and ClearML supports on-premises deployment options.
Approval caveat: Validate that your specific release and configuration can enforce mandatory, auditable multi-party promotion approvals—not just restrict resource access.
3. Kubeflow Hub Model Registry — best Kubernetes-native open-source option
The registry versions and tracks model artifacts, records validation metadata, and supports release workflows. It can be deployed on your own Kubernetes infrastructure, making it attractive for on-premises clusters and cloud Kubernetes environments.
Approval caveat: Plan to implement enforced approval gates, audit records, and rollback automation through your identity controls and deployment pipelines.
4. Amazon SageMaker AI Model Registry — strongest for AWS-centric governance
Supports model package versions, approval status, lineage, and policy-controlled promotion using AWS identity and event-driven deployment workflows. AWS also documents hybrid registry synchronization with MLflow.
Approval caveat: This is cloud-centric governance, not a fully self-hosted registry. On-premises inference requires a separately designed deployment and rollback path.
5. Azure Machine Learning Registry — best for Azure-led multi-environment promotion
Shares versioned models and environments across workspaces and preserves lineage to training jobs, code, data, and environments. Microsoft documents promotion pipelines with approval gates and staged rollout/rollback patterns, including hybrid network connectivity.
Approval caveat: On-premises model serving still needs a compatible runtime and deployment integration; the registry itself is an Azure service.
Version selection; deployment rollback needs integration
Strong
ClearML Enterprise
Validate enforcement configuration
Strong
This is a capability-based comparison, not a claim that every product enforces every control out of the box. Sources: MLflow, ClearML, Kubeflow, AWS, and Microsoft.
My recommendation
For a vendor-neutral enterprise standard: Start with MLflow and add an enforceable approval service or protected CI/CD promotion pipeline.
For a self-hosted enterprise MLOps platform: Evaluate ClearML Enterprise against your approval and audit requirements.
For a Kubernetes-first organization: Evaluate Kubeflow with KServe and policy-enforced deployment pipelines.
For a cloud-led organization: Prefer SageMaker for AWS or Azure ML for Azure if you can accommodate their cloud dependencies.
Whichever you choose, require these four controls in a proof of concept:
Approval enforcement: An unauthorized user or service account cannot promote a model, even through the API.
End-to-end lineage: Every deployed version links to its training run, data references, code, dependencies, and evaluation results.
Immutable promotion: The exact artifact approved in staging is the artifact deployed to production, including across environments.
Verified rollback: An operator can restore the previous known-good model and serving configuration, with an auditable record of the action.
One important architectural point: a registry is not the entire release-control system. Reliable governance usually combines the registry, identity and authorization policies, an approval workflow, and deployment automation.