Most people take for granted that things just work, especially the applications they depend on daily. The reality that we, our customers, and every technology practitioner knows is that there's a lot happening behind the scenes to keep applications running, data flowing, and systems secure in today's hybrid multicloud world.
At our recent AppWorld event, I shared an analogy: enterprise IT environments are like complex, sprawling cities.
How the analogy maps
Every cloud region, every data center, every edge location is like a neighborhood in the city.
Applications are the buildings. Some are standalone structures—your traditional monolithic apps. Others are modern residential complexes, with microservices working together across multiple connected structures.
APIs are the roads, crisscrossing neighborhoods and connecting every building.
The data flowing through all of it is the power grid behind everything.
In my analogy, NetOps, SecOps, DevOps, and PlatformOps pros are the city managers. They are the ones with the thankless task of making sure the buildings are wired, the roads are paved, and the lights are always on. That is no small feat, especially because the cities I'm describing are not small. Think of them like Tokyo, Mexico City, or New York—megacities that have been built in waves over decades.
Over the years, as neighborhood after neighborhood was added, each with a mix of old and new buildings, three things happened. Visibility dropped, which made it harder to see what's happening across an entire city. Consistent building codes became impossible to enforce, which meant what worked in one neighborhood doesn't translate to the next.
Lastly, new challenges, risks, and threats were added; each new neighborhood came with its own unique set.
“We've built a single, interconnected management platform that can see every building in every neighborhood, secure every road, manage your data, and enforce building codes across your entire city.”
This complexity—these megacities—they're growing. Digital sovereignty and AI are taking already complex hybrid multicloud environments and increasing the sprawl exponentially. While that sprawl is strategic, it doesn't make it any easier to manage.
Both my father and brother are architects, so this analogy resonates with me. To the IT leaders reading this, I hope you can take it and make it your own to explain the complexity you're managing to anyone who doesn't live and breathe this stuff.
Your megacity keeps growing
Our 2026 State of Application Strategy Report found that on average, enterprises have apps running in 19 locations today. In other words, you are tasked with managing 19 separate neighborhoods: five on-premises, five colocation facilities, and nine cloud regions. That is a lot of neighborhoods, and the number is likely to grow.
To add to the challenge, as city manager, you're no longer just serving the people of your megacity, you're serving their robots too. I'm talking about agentic AI.
According to an IDC presentation, Agent Economics: Adoption and Delivery Model for Agents, Actions, and Tokens, the number of active AI agents will exceed 1 billion worldwide by 2029. These agents will execute over 217 billion actions per day.” Each action will need to be delivered and secured. Your city is about to experience unprecedented growth, and the implications for delivery and security are staggering.
A platform will help
Here's the good news: you can now more easily explain your work to non-techies using this city analogy. Regardless of how many neighborhoods your city adds, the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform helps IT leaders like you manage these growing megacities. We've built a single, interconnected management platform that can see every building in every neighborhood, secure every road, manage your data, and enforce building codes across your entire city.
To learn more about how we're helping IT teams navigate this inflection point, join us at one of our upcoming AppWorld roadshows.
Together, we'll help each other thrive and build gorgeous, thriving cities that enable a better digital world.
About the Author
François Locoh-Donou is F5’s Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer. He joined F5 in April 2017 as President, CEO, and director. He was appointed Chairman of the Board in March 2026. Since joining F5 as CEO in April 2017, he has spearheaded the company’s business transformation from a networking hardware maker to a software- and SaaS-first leader in hybrid, multicloud application delivery and security. He has also been instrumental in the company’s cultural transformation to a high-performance, human-first organization energized by F5’s purpose to build a better digital world. Prior to joining F5, Locoh-Donou served as Chief Operating Officer at Ciena, a global networking solutions provider to the telecom industry; his leadership positions there also included executive roles in the Product, Sales, and Marketing organizations. He also held research and development roles at Photonetics, a French opto-electronics company. Raised in Togo and France, Locoh-Donou holds engineering degrees from École Centrale de Marseille and Télécom ParisTech in France, as well as an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is the co-founder and chairman of Cajou Espoir, a cashew processing business employing several hundred people, mostly women, in rural Togo. Locoh-Donou also serves on the Board of Directors of Capital One, one of the most recognized brands in banking serving the U.S., U.K., and Canada.
More blogs by François Locoh-DonouRelated Blog Posts
The patch window has closed. Here is how F5 is built for what comes next.
As AI models have changed software security, the industry needs to adapt.
Responsible AI: Guardrails align innovation with ethics
AI innovation moves fast. But without the right guardrails, speed can come at the cost of trust, accountability, and long-term value.
Best practices for optimizing AI infrastructure at scale
Optimizing AI infrastructure isn’t about chasing peak performance benchmarks. It’s about designing for stability, resiliency, security, and operational clarity
Datos Insights: Securing APIs and multicloud in financial services
New threat analysis from Datos Insights highlights actionable recommendations for API and web application security in the financial services sector
Secrets to scaling AI-ready, secure SaaS
Learn how secure SaaS scales with application delivery, security, observability, and XOps.
How AI inference changes application delivery
Learn how AI inference reshapes application delivery by redefining performance, availability, and reliability, and why traditional approaches no longer suffice.