The Tester's Role in Continuous Integration

If your software product is recompiled and integrated frequently, you can improve your testing by integrating automated tests into your continuous integration process. In many organizations, unit tests are run as part of continuous integration; however, that is not enough. During the continuous integration cycle, integration of all automated tests-system, integration, unit, and regression-is vital to help find defects quickly and provide a substantial return on investment. Ayal Cohen and Roi Carmel describe the types of tests needed, the pros and cons of each type, and how to choose which tests to execute according to development code change, business criticality, and history of execution. Ayal and Roi discuss the need for service virtualization so you can run your tests in an environment that has not yet been fully developed, providing virtual substitutes for the missing services.