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 first execution environment running within 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 second execution environment running within a base Operating System (OS) layer of the mainframe computing device if the indicator indicates that the target program is to be executed asynchronously, wherein the second execution environment is different than the first execution environment.