Software development is like building a component using other components. Managing dependencies between component become very important. Maven repository makes component management simple. The idea is that where is a list of remote components. Whenever you need any thing (dependent), Maven gets it from remote repository and place it in your local repository. When u are ready to release the component you are working on, just deploy it, Maven will upload it to the remote repository. more one repository : http://maven.apache.org/using/repositories.html