MCP in Azure: Using API Management for Authentication, Access, Logging & Governance

If MCP is becoming the “USB-C for AI,” enterprises need something equally familiar on the other side of that port: a control plane . The Model Context Protocol (MCP) gives AI applications a standard way to discover tools, retrieve context, and call capabilities from external systems. But once you move beyond a single local server and start connecting multiple remote tools across teams, environments, and data domains, the protocol alone is not enough, you also need a way to manage identity, access, traffic, visibility, and lifecycle consistently.