Q: Continuous Integration: Centralize Software Assets In order to achieve Continuous Integration, in the book Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risks, one can read that one of the principles behind it is centralizing software assets on a version control system, may these be compiled artifacts, libraries, third party components and so on.
I can understand such statement in case one is only using a SCM and nothing else. But what about if one is to be using a tool such as Nexus? Would you say that Nexus or the alike makes such statement obsolete when referring to already built artifacts?

A: The short answer is: "yes"
The longer answer is that using Nexus to centralize software assets is perfectly legitimate, as it is also a versioned store. It is more appropriate for technologies that need to compile binaries, but even for scripted technologies I favour creating tarballs or better still RPM packages. Finally a deployment process that incorporates an SCM system marries you to that software.... More worryingly every person who needs to install your software must also have access (credentials) to the tool.
