An embodiment may involve proxy server applications within a managed network, and a computational instance disposed within a remote network management platform. The computational instance may contain queues and facilitate the execution of applications. Communication between the computational instance and managed network may involve: (i) selecting, by a particular application, a particular output queue; (ii) writing, by the particular application, a unit of work generated by the particular application to the particular output queue; (iii) retrieving, by a particular proxy server application, the unit of work; (iv) carrying out, by the particular proxy server application, the unit of work; (v) writing, by the particular proxy server application, a result to a particular input queue, where the result represents an outcome of carrying out the unit of work; and (vi) retrieving, by the particular application, the result from the particular input queue.