How to automate integration testing?

Question

I\'d like to know something, I know that to make your test easier you should use mock during unit testing to only test the component you want, without external dependencies. But

Answer 1

Depending on the actual nature of the integration tests I'd recommend using an embedded database engine which is recreated at least once before any run. This enables tests of different commits to work in parallel and provides a well defined starting point for the tests.

Network services - by definition - can also be installed somewhere else.

Always be very careful though, to keep your CI machine separated from any dev or prod environments.