Building a Cross-Account Central Model Catalog with SageMaker Model Registry and Model Group Resource Policies

Why the Answer Is Correct

The requirement is a central catalog for ML models that are spread across the AWS accounts where they were developed and hosted in ECR. SageMaker Model Registry is the service built for cataloging ML models, and creating a model group for models hosted in ECR registers them with the metadata and organization a catalog requires. Putting the Model Registry in a new central account and attaching a cross-account resource policy to each model group in the original accounts is what allows that central registry to reference the models across account boundaries without relocating the artifacts. The vote was 88 for C. GiorgioGss identified the decisive point that the question asks for a central catalog, which implies metadata and lineage, and noted that ECR cannot serve as that solution.

Why the Other Options Are Wrong

Configuring ECR cross-account replication so each model is visible in every account (A) replicates container images between repositories, and a list of replicated images is not a model catalog, so it provides no model metadata, grouping, or discoverability. Creating a new account with a new ECR repository as the central catalog and replicating into it (B) is the same category error as option A in a different shape, and a4002bd argued that it centralizes models in a single ECR repository, which is repository consolidation rather than cataloging. Using an AWS Glue Data Catalog with a crawler to migrate the models and cross-account access (D) is a mismatch because the Glue Data Catalog catalogs data files and schemas, not ML models, and a crawler enumerating ECR repositories does not produce model metadata.

Community Comment Notes

The community favored C at 88 votes, and GiorgioGss gave the reasoning that decided the question, observing that a central catalog implies metadata and lineage tracking are included, and that ECR could not be the solution. aws_Tpozit expanded on the same logic in detail, matching the keywords of a central catalog across accounts with the Model Registry model group plus cross-account resource policy. The single dissenting comment, from a4002bd, argued for option B on the grounds that cross-account replication centralizes the models in one repository, which is a reasonable reading of repository consolidation but does not satisfy the catalog requirement the question states.