1. A method comprising: receiving a request from an agent executing on a mainframe computing device to perform a function on the mainframe computing device, the request including information that identifies a corresponding target program to be executed on the mainframe computing device; determining whether the target program is to be executed on the mainframe computing device synchronously or asynchronously based on an indicator received with the request; executing the target program in a services layer of the mainframe computing device if the indicator indicates that the target program is to be executed synchronously; and executing the target program in a base Operating System (OS) layer of the mainframe computing device if the indicator indicates that the target program is to be executed asynchronously.