If you are looking for the easiest way to search for artifacts in the Central repository, go to http://repository.sonatype.org. Sonatype maintains a public instance of Sonatype Nexus Repository that can be used to search for artifacts by GAV (groupId, artifactId, version) coordinates, Class Name, or Checksum. Here's a brief demonstration of the search capabilities on http://repository.sonatype.org.
If you would like to manage your own instance of Nexus and index your own Hosted repositories, you can download an install Nexus. If you manage your own instance of Nexus, you can proxy other Maven repositories (including Central) and you will have a place to publish your own organization's artifacts.
When you host a Nexus instance and you proxy a remote repository, Nexus downloads a Nexus repository index, this index is what enables Nexus to quickly search the contents of a Maven repository. Downloading this small repository index is all Nexus needs to do to search the entire repository.
Tim is a Software Architect with experience in all aspects of software development from project inception to developing scaleable production architectures for large-scale systems during critical, high-risk events such as Black Friday. He has helped many organizations ranging from small startups to ...
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