The CI Server
Stephen Ritchie 
At the heart of continuous integration is the tool and technology of the continuous integration (CI) server.
Is there a continuous integration (CI) server that the team uses?
At the heart of continuous integration is the tool and technology of the continuous integration server. The CI server is an application, usually running in the background as a service application, which initiates, executes, and reports on all the processes of the continuous integration lifecycle. The CI server provides key capabilities such as
- Integrating with and monitoring the version control system
- Triggering events, such as on source code commits, on a schedule or in sequence
- Running build automation and deployment scripts
- Running tests
- Performing analysis
- Providing notification, status messages, and build logs
- Storing artifacts and related output
The CI server help the team avoid Integration Hell.
There are many CI servers available. Guru99 provides a list of some widely-used CI servers. Depending on your context, here is a list of the ones I believe are worth evaluating:
- Bamboo
- CircleCI
- CruiseControl
- GitHub Actions
- Gitlab CI
- Jenkins
- TeamCity
- Team Foundation Server
CI Lifecycle
The continuous integration lifecycle (shown in the Figure below) is a model for how the CI server manages and moves through the phases. It starts with the latest code push and ends with a report on the stability of the deployment. All along the way, each phase provides a report on the actions performed during and the results from each phase. Once the CI server has successfully performed the packaging, a new deliverable joins the steady stream of deliverables that flows from the lifecycle. As each phase continues successfully, it confirms that the source code is sound and that development is progressing.
The CI server affords the team the ability to run build scripts, unit tests, code analysis, and automated deployments. Most CI servers can be configured to run many automated tasks, and include database scripts, UI tests, and notification e-mails. The idea is to leverage automation as much as possible.
Categories: : continuous integration