Like a human life, an application’s lifecycle is demarcated by significant events. It begins with an idea: Why don’t we build something that does this? Once the application is created, the next big event is deployment, when the application goes into production. And finally, when it no longer has business value, the application reaches end of life and is removed from service.Defining application lifecycle management (ALM) isn’t easy. Different people (and different vendors) take quite different perspectives. Still, ALM is an important topic, and so understanding what it encompasses is also important.