one can compile all the modules with a single command. POMs can also inherit configuration from other POMs. All POMs inherit from the Super POM by default. The Super POM provides default configuration, such as default source directories, default plugins, and so on. Plug-ins Most of Maven's functionality is in plug-ins. A plugin provides a set of goals that can be executed using the command mvn [plugin-name]:[goal-name]. For example, a Java project can be compiled with the compiler-plugin's compile-goal by running mvn compiler:compile. There are Maven plugins for building, testing, source control management, running a web server, generating Eclipse project files, and much more. Plugins are introduced and configured in a <plugins>-section of a pom.xml file. Some basic plugins are included in every project by default, and they have sensible default settings. However, it would be cumbersome if the archetypal build sequence of building, testing and packaging a software project required running each respective goal manually: mvn compiler:compile mvn surefire:test mvn jar:jar Maven's lifecycle concept handles this issue. Plugins are the primary way to extend Maven. Developing a Maven plugin can be done by extending the org.apache.maven.plugin.AbstractMojo class. Example code and explanation for a Maven plugin to create a cloud-based virtual machine running an application server is given in the article Automate development and management of cloud virtual machines. Build lifecycles The build lifecycle is a list of named phases that can be used to give order to goal execution. One of Maven's standard lifecycles is the default lifecycle, which includes the following phases, in this order: validate generate-sources process-sources generate-resources process-resources compile process-test-sources process-test-resources test-compile test package install deploy Goals provided by plugins can be associated with different phases of the lifecycle. For example, by default, the goal "compiler:compile" is associated with the "compile" phase, while the goal "surefire:test" is associated with the "test" phase. When the mvn test command is executed, Maven runs all goals associated with each of the phases up to and including the "test" phase. In such a case, Maven runs the "resources:resources" goal associated with the "process-resources" phase, then "compiler:compile", and so on until it finally runs the "surefire:test" goal. Maven also has standard phases for cleaning the project and for generating a project site. If cleaning were part of the default lifecycle, the project would be cleaned every time it was built. This is clearly undesirable, so cleaning has been given its own