When you run a workflow on a grid, the master service process runs the workflow and all tasks except Session, Command, and predefined Event-Wait tasks, which it may distribute to other nodes. The master service process is the Integration Service process that runs the workflow, monitors service processes running on other nodes, and runs the Load Balancer. The Scheduler runs on the master service process node, so it uses the date and time for the master service process node to start scheduled workflows.

The Load Balancer is the component of the Integration Service that dispatches Session, Command, and predefined Event-Wait tasks to the nodes in the grid. The Load Balancer distributes tasks based on node availability. If the Integration Service is configured to check resources, the Load Balancer also distributes tasks based on resource availability.

For example, a workflow contains a Session task, a Decision task, and a Command task. You specify a resource requirement for the Session task. The grid contains four nodes, and Node 4 is unavailable. The master service process runs the Start and Decision tasks. The Load Balancer distributes the Session and Command tasks to nodes on the grid based on resource availability and node availability.

The following image shows a workflow distributed to the nodes on a grid:

Reader threads run on Node 1 where resources are available.
Transformation threads run on Node 2 where resources are available.
Writer threads run on Node 3 where resources are available.
Node 4 is unavailable, so no threads run on it.