A method and system including two or more virtual machines; a load balancer module; a load balancer processor in communication with the load balancer module and operative to execute processor-executable process steps to cause the system to: initiate an application integration component; create a set of one or more integration steps to transfer data between a cloud-based application and a second application; receive selection of an element of a virtual machine; broadcast a current state of each virtual machine to the other virtual machines; determine which of the two or more virtual machines has a pre-set amount of the selected element; retrieve a mutual exclusion component, wherein the mutual exclusion component is retrieved by the virtual machine determined to have the pre-set amount of the selected element; and execute the integration steps at the virtual machine that retrieved the mutual exclusion component. Numerous other aspects are provided.