You use the Register as Consumer command in CentraSite to associate an application asset with a virtual service. This command establishes an association between the application asset (which represents a consumer application) and the virtual service that it consumes. Registering an application asset with a virtual service enables you to use the Impact Analysis feature in CentraSite to quickly determine which virtual services a consumer application consumes (and also determine which consumer applications use a particular virtual service).

Additionally, if you use the Authorize Against Registered Consumers policy action to control access to a virtual service at run time, only registered consumer applications are allowed to invoke the virtual service. Consequently, when you use this form of access control, the consumer applications that are permitted to use a virtual service must be registered to the virtual service.