Sonatype have announced a mirror in Europe of the Maven Central repository. Based in the UK, it is a full replication (not just a mirror) of the Maven central repository; and using a domain name that indicates its location. This will facilitate any future rollouts of other regional mirrors to bring bits faster to those acquiring it.
The growth of the Maven central repository has jumped significantly this year as more developers are publishing their assets via Maven Central and the open-source Nexus OSS hosting service. The total size of the repository is currently around 180Gb, having jumped from 120Gb at the start of the second half of the year.
The roll-out also includes new processes to automatically manage artefacts uploaded into the repository, including quality and other automated scans. This, combined with resilience in the local region, gives a high quality of service for the Maven repository.
To enable accessing the European mirror, you can update your settings.xml file to include:
<mirrors>
<mirror>
<id>uk</id>
<mirrorOf>central</mirrorOf>
<url>http://uk.maven.org/maven2/</url>
</mirror>
</mirrors>
A third mirror of Maven central in Asia is expected to be launched in the near future.