The integration test cycle includes the following:
During the integration builds, all of the newly completed tasks from developers are gathered and built. They are gathered based on the integration testing process rule used by the integration testing project hierarchy.
The software is likely to have problems at this point, and may not even build successfully. The goal is to find problems right away, not to get a high quality installation area. This is because of the unstable nature of the software at this point in development.
The kinds of problems you might see during integration-level builds include:
Remember that the integration build area is not a stable environment because it contains the most recently completed tasks. Another reason is that the candidates change frequently as developers complete their tasks. (This is normal.)
The integration test cycle be short and frequent; this will help you to find problems as early in the development cycle as possible. Additionally, developers with insulated development projects do not bring in each others’ changes until the tasks have passed integration testing.
The integration cycle works best if you can build and test every day, and make the newly tested tasks available to developers immediately after they pass testing.
Typically, the integration-level build cycle includes the following: