As AI-powered agents and large language models (LLMs) become central to modern application experiences, developers and enterprises need seamless, secure ways to connect these models to real-world data and capabilities. Today, we’re excited to introduce two powerful preview capabilities in the Azure API Management Platform:
- Expose REST APIs in Azure API Management as remote Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers
- Discover and manage MCP servers using API Center as a centralized enterprise registry
Together, these updates help customers securely operationalize APIs for AI workloads and improve how APIs are managed and shared across organizations.
Unlocking the value of AI through secure API integration
While LLMs are incredibly capable, they are stateless and isolated unless connected to external tools and systems. Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard designed to bridge this gap by allowing agents to invoke tools—such as APIs—via a standardized, JSON-RPC-based interface.
With this release, Azure empowers you to operationalize your APIs for AI integration—securely, observably, and at scale.
1. Expose REST APIs as MCP servers with Azure API Management
An MCP server exposes selected API operations to AI clients over JSON-RPC via HTTP or Server-Sent Events (SSE). These operations, referred to as “tools,” can be invoked by AI agents through natural language prompts.
With this new capability, you can expose your existing REST APIs in Azure API Management as MCP servers—without rebuilding or rehosting them.
Addressing common challenges
Before this capability, customers faced several challenges when implementing MCP support:
- Duplicating development efforts: Building MCP servers from scratch often led to unnecessary work when existing REST APIs already provided much of the needed functionality.
- Security concerns:
- Server trust: Malicious servers could impersonate trusted ones.
- Credential management: Self-hosted MCP implementations often had to manage sensitive credentials like OAuth tokens.
- Registry and discovery: Without a centralized registry, discovering and managing MCP tools was manual and fragmented, making it hard to scale securely across teams.
API Management now addresses these concerns by serving as a managed, policy-enforced hosting surface for MCP tools—offering centralized control, observability, and security.
Benefits of using Azure API Management with MCP
By exposing MCP servers through Azure API Management, customers gain:
- Centralized governance for API access, authentication, and usage policies
- Secure connectivity using OAuth 2.0 and subscription keys
- Granular control over which API operations are exposed to AI agents as tools
- Built-in observability through APIM’s monitoring and diagnostics features
How it works
- MCP servers: In your API Management instance navigate to MCP servers
- Choose an API: + Create a new MCP Server and select the REST API you wish to expose.
- Configure the MCP Server: Select the API operations you want to expose as tools. These can be all or a subset of your API’s methods.
- Test and Integrate: Use tools like MCP Inspector or Visual Studio Code (in agent mode) to connect, test, and invoke the tools from your AI host.
Getting started and availability
This feature is now in public preview and being gradually rolled out to early access customers. To use the MCP server capability in Azure API Management:
Prerequisites
- Your APIM instance must be on a SKUv1 tier: Premium, Standard, or Basic
- Your service must be enrolled in the AI Gateway early update group (activation may take up to 2 hours)
- Use the Azure Portal with feature flag:
➤ Append ?Microsoft_Azure_ApiManagement=mcp to your portal URL to access the MCP server configuration experience
Note: Support for SKUv2 and broader availability will follow in upcoming updates. Full setup instructions and test guidance can be found via aka.ms/apimdocs/exportmcp.
2. Centralized MCP registry and discovery with Azure API Center
As enterprises adopt MCP servers at scale, the need for a centralized, governed registry becomes critical. Azure API Center now provides this capability—serving as a single, enterprise-grade system of record for managing MCP endpoints.
With API Center, teams can:
- Maintain a comprehensive inventory of MCP servers.
- Track version history, ownership, and metadata.
- Enforce governance policies across environments.
- Simplify compliance and reduce operational overhead.
API Center also addresses enterprise-grade security by allowing administrators to define who can discover, access, and consume specific MCP servers—ensuring only authorized users can interact with sensitive tools.
To support developer adoption, API Center includes:
- Semantic search and a modern discovery UI.
- Easy filtering based on capabilities, metadata, and usage context.
- Tight integration with Copilot Studio and GitHub Copilot, enabling developers to use MCP tools directly within their coding workflows.
These capabilities reduce duplication, streamline workflows, and help teams securely scale MCP usage across the organization.
Getting started
This feature is now in preview and accessible to customers:
3. What’s next
These new previews are just the beginning. We're already working on:
Azure API Management (APIM)
- Passthrough MCP server support
We’re enabling APIM to act as a transparent proxy between your APIs and AI agents—no custom server logic needed. This will simplify onboarding and reduce operational overhead.
Azure API Center (APIC)
- Deeper integration with Copilot Studio and VS Code
Today, developers must perform manual steps to surface API Center data in Copilot workflows. We’re working to make this experience more visual and seamless, allowing developers to discover and consume MCP servers directly from familiar tools like VS Code and Copilot Studio.
For questions or feedback, reach out to your Microsoft account team or visit:
— The Azure API Management & API Center Teams
Updated May 19, 2025
Version 1.0
anishta
Microsoft
Microsoft
