How does the concept of “service registry” work in a microservices architecture?

Short answer: A Service Registry is a database or directory that stores information about services, their instances, and their locations (IPs and ports). It acts as a directory for services to register and clients to look up services.

Real-world example (ShopNest)

ShopNest splits Catalog, Cart, Order, and Payment into services so teams can deploy catalog changes without redeploying payments.

Say this in the interview

1. Define — one clear sentence (the short answer above).
2. Example — relate it to a project like ShopNest or your real work.
3. Trade-off — when you would not use it.