This paper presents a Domain Configuration grid service which provides a service configuration and lifecycle management mechanism for a Grid infrastructure employing a service oriented architecture (SOA). A SOA Grid infrastructure is typically composed of numerous domains, which in turn are typically composed of numerous services. A Grid usually exists to achieve a set of pre-defined goals; therefore services must interoperate possibly across independent domains to meet the objective(s). This paper details a discussion of the reasons why service configuration and lifecycle management is required in a loosely coupled distributed system, in particular a Grid SOA system named Gridcast. In order to avail of the benefits offered by a loosely coupled system it is important to maintain an efficient Grid, this paper presents a number of service configuration and lifecycle management strategies which aim to achieve that goal.