Missing artifact com.microsoft.sqlserver:sqljdbc4:jar:4.0

I am trying to add MS SQL driver dependency in my POM.xml file and the following is the dependency.

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.microsoft.sqlserver</groupId>
    <artifactId>sqljdbc4</artifactId>
    <version>4.0</version>
</dependency>

but I get this exception

Missing artifact com.microsoft.sqlserver:sqljdbc4:jar:4.0

I really don't understand the issue.

UPDATE

Microsoft now provide this artifact in maven central. See @nirmal's answer for further details: https://stackoverflow.com/a/41149866/1570834

ORIGINAL ANSWER

The issue is that Maven can't find this artifact in any of the configured maven repositories.

Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't make this artifact available via any maven repository. You need to download the jar from the Microsoft website, and then manually install it into your local maven repository.

You can do this with the following maven command:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=sqljdbc4.jar -DgroupId=com.microsoft.sqlserver -DartifactId=sqljdbc4 -Dversion=4.0 -Dpackaging=jar

Then next time you run maven on your POM it will find the artifact.

Microsoft recently open sourced their jdbc driver.

You can now find the driver on maven central:

<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.microsoft.sqlserver/mssql-jdbc -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.microsoft.sqlserver</groupId>
    <artifactId>mssql-jdbc</artifactId>
    <version>6.1.0.jre8</version>
</dependency>

or for java 7:

<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.microsoft.sqlserver/mssql-jdbc -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.microsoft.sqlserver</groupId>
    <artifactId>mssql-jdbc</artifactId>
    <version>6.1.0.jre7</version>
</dependency>

I had the similar problem and solved it by doing following.

• Download sqljdbc4.jar from the Microsoft website to your local machine.
  
• Right click on Project-->Import-->Maven-->Install or deploy an artifact to a Maven repository as shown below.
  
  

* Next-->Fill the following details

Artifact file: path of the jar you downloaded (Ex: E:\lib\sqljdbc4.jar in my case)
Group Id: com.microsoft.sqlserver
Artifact Id: sqljdbc4
Version: 4.0

• Then Refresh/clean the project.
  
  Thank you!

You can also create a project repository. It's useful if more developers are working on the same project, and the library must be included in the project.

• First, create a repository structure in your project's lib directory, and then copy the library into it. The library must have following name-format: <artifactId>-<version>.jar

  <your_project_dir>/lib/com/microsoft/sqlserver/<artifactId>/<version>/

• Create pom file next to the library file, and put following information into it:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <project xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd" xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
            xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
       <modelVersion>4.2.0</modelVersion>
       <groupId>com.microsoft.sqlserver</groupId>
       <artifactId>sqljdbc4</artifactId>
       <version>4.2</version>
   </project>
   

• At this point, you should have this directory structure:

  <your_project_dir>/lib/com/microsoft/sqlserver/sqljdbc4/4.2/sqljdbc4-4.2.jar <your_project_dir>/lib/com/microsoft/sqlserver/sqljdbc4/4.2/sqljdbc4-4.2.pom

• Go to your project's pom file and add new repository:

  <repositories>
       <repository>
           <id>Project repository</id>
           <url>file://${basedir}/lib</url>
       </repository>
   </repositories>
   

• Finally, add a dependency on the library:

  <dependencies>
       <dependency>
           <groupId>com.microsoft.sqlserver</groupId>
           <artifactId>sqljdbc4</artifactId>
           <version>4.2</version>
       </dependency>
   </dependencies>
   

Update 2017-03-04

It seems like the library can be obtained from publicly available repository. @see nirmal's and Jacek Grzelaczyk's answers for more details.

Update 2020-11-04

Currently Maven has a convenient target install which allow you to deploy an existing package into a project / file repository without the need of creating POM files manually. It will generate those files for you.

mvn install:install-file \
    -Dfile=sqljdbc4.jar \
    -DgroupId=com.microsoft.sqlserver \
    -DartifactId=sqljdbc4 \
    -Dversion=4.2 \
    -Dpackaging=jar \
    -DlocalRepositoryPath=${your_project_dir}/lib

The above answer only adds the sqljdbc4.jar to the local repository. As a result, when creating the final project jar for distribution, sqljdbc4 will again be missing as was indicated in the comment by @Tony regarding runtime error.

Microsoft (and Oracle and other third party providers) restrict the distribution of their software as per the ENU/EULA. Therefore those software modules do not get added in Maven produced jars for distribution. There are hacks to get around it (such as providing the location of the 3rd party jar file at runtime), but as a developer you must be careful about violating the licensing.

A better approach for jdbc connectors/drivers is to use jTDS, which is compatible to most DBMS's, more reliable, faster (as per benchmarks), and distributed under GNU license. It will make your life much easier to use this than trying to pound the square peg into the round hole following any of the other techniques above.