MCP – newestkid in town MCP Host
LLM application that needs access to external
capabilities
MCP Clients
Protocol client that maintains 1:1 connection with
servers inside host app
MCP Servers
Lightweight programs that each expose specific
capabilities and provide context, tools and
prompts to clients
MCP Protocol
Transport layer in the middle
4.
Converging Agentic Extensibilitywith MCP
Multi-Service Integration
Agents or orchestrators can flexibly
call a wide range of external
APIs/tools
Reusable Tools
Once written the Tool can be used
by any MCP-compatible client with
minimal friction
Enterprise Scalability
Potential to unify multiple teams’ AI
Integrations into a single product
Ecosystem Momentum
Anthropic, Perplexity, VS Code,
Azure, Copilot Studio all support
MCP; OpenAI & Google have
announced plans
GitHub star growth for MCP repo since launch (Dec 2024–Mar 2025). The project
amassed over 15k stars within a few months, highlighting rapid developer traction
5.
Model Context Protocolat Microsoft
Copilot
Studio
VS
Code
Foundry
Agent
Visual
Studio
GitHub
Copilot
Microsoft
Teams
Semantic
Kernel
MCP Clients & Host
Tools
Community Enterprise Windows
Registry
C#
MCP SDK
Azure API
Management
Azure
Functions
Microsoft
Connectors
Build Local & Remote MCPs
MPC enables seamless Integration between
LLM Apps and external data sources
Model Context Protocol
6.
AI Gateway capabilitiesof Azure API Management
AI Gateway
Security & safety
• Keyless managed identities
• AI Apps & Agents Authorizations -New
• Content Safety -GA
• Credential Manager
Resiliency
• Weight load balancing
• Priority routing to provisioned capacity models
• Backend pools with circuit breaker
• Session aware load balancing -GA
Scalability
• Token rate limits and token quotas
• Semantic Caching -GA
• Model load balancing
• Multi-regional deployments
Traffic mediation & control
• Azure AI Foundry & Azure OpenAI
• OpenAI compatible models -GA
• Responses API -GA
• WebSocket’s for Realtime APIs
• MCP server pass-trough - Soon
• Expose APIs as built-in MCP server - Preview
Developer velocity
• Wizard policy configuration experience
• Self-service with the Developer Portal
• API Center Copilot Studio connector - Preview
• Policy Toolkit
Observability
• Token counting per consumer
• Prompts and completions logging -GA
• Built-in reporting dashboard -GA
Governance
• Policy engine with custom expressions
• API Center MCP server registry - Preview
• Federated API Management
GA
GA
GA Soon
GA
GA
GA
GA
Preview
Preview
GA
Preview
New
Azure API Managementas Auth Gateway
• Expose remote MCP servers in secure and
scalable way
• Security
• API Management as remote MCP proxy
safeguards organizational data through
authentication and authorization
• Scalability
• Ensures system can handle load as the
number of LLM interactions and external
tools grows
12.
MCP Client AuthFlow
Azure API Management Your Auth Gateway For MCP Servers | Microsoft Community Hub
13.
MCP will helpyour app/service grow
Reach New
Users
Expose your
capabilities
through a variety
of agents when
the user needs
them, getting
users into your
service.
Accelerate User
Tasks
Agents can skip
the learning curve
with UI and get
tasks done in
seconds that
would take the
user tens of
minutes.
Agentic
Capabilities for
Less
Integrate your
servers into other
agents if you
don’t want to
make your own.
Easily make your
own agent with
MCP servers
ready to go.
Optimize
Development
Tools are for
developers too!
They can
integrate into
your development
pipeline!
Reducing toil and
increasing speed.
Easy
Extensibility
Provide an easy
extensibility
interface for
services to
integrate into
your application,
no new
frameworks
needed!
14.
Summary
• APIM streamlinesthe process of presenting APIs as MCP servers, enhancing security and scalability.
• AI agents, like Copilot, are able to interact with enterprise APIs in a regulated manner, enabling new
applications while maintaining oversight and safety.
• OAuth 2.0 Authentication protects the MCP server, with APIM acting as the gatekeeper for the OAuth
process.
• The OAuth 2.0 framework utilizing Entra ID ensures that only permitted users are granted access to
enterprise tools via MCP.
• The MCP Inspector is a tool for developers aimed at testing and debugging MCP servers, akin to a visual
debugger or “Postman” for MCP.