Continuous Integration is a software development practice where members of a team integrate
their work (Code) frequently, usually each person integrates at least daily - leading to multiple
integrations per day. By having scheduled automated builds we can determine if are there any
integration issues , also by running the Unit Testcases as part of these builds and verify
if is the existing functionality is broken. Automated tools such as CruiseControl, Jenkins,
Hudson, Bamboo, BuildMaster, AnthillPro or Teamcity offer this scheduling automatically.

Here are the principles of "Continuous Integration"

Maintain a code repository :
Code should be maintained in a Version Control such as CVS,SVN,VSS,ClearCase etc., which could allow
multiple developers to work collaboratively in parallel by Versioning the Files (code).

Automate the build :
Should Have scheduled automated builds by using the tools like "Hudson,TeamCity, CruiseControl" etc.,
which could automatically checkout(Get) the code from Code Repository and build.

Make the build self-testing :
During the build process, after compiling the code we can make the Code Self-Testing by
executing the Unit Test cases such as JUNIT or Cactus or EasyMock etc. and confirms that
nothings is broken.

Automate deployment :
Once build and self-testing process is done, we should have automated Deployments.

Tools such as  "Hudson,TeamCity, CruiseControl" do complete "Continuous Integation" for you,
but you have to have some build script such as ANT or MAVEN scripts to perform some of these Tasks.

Here is the sequence of tasks that could be done by above tools.
i) Having Scheduled Builds. (Daily or Hours)
i) Checkout the code.
ii) Compile the Code.
iii) Running Unit Test-Casess.
iv) FTP code to different hosts
v) Deploy the artifacts.

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