AI agent governance

MCP Gateway: Govern Every Agent's Access to Your MCP Servers

ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot Studio, and your own agents can now call enterprise tools over MCP. Datawiza Agent Gateway puts your identity provider in front of every MCP server so every tool call is authenticated, authorized, rate-limited, and logged, without changing your MCP servers.

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Identity-aware MCP gateway between AI agents and enterprise MCP servers

Category overview

What is an MCP gateway?

The Model Context Protocol gives AI agents and assistants a standard way to call tools: query a database, file a ticket, retrieve a document, or update a record. An MCP gateway is a reverse proxy purpose-built for that traffic. It sits between MCP clients and MCP servers, then enforces who may connect, which tools each identity may see and call, how fast they can call them, and what audit trail is recorded. The need is practical. MCP servers are being stood up quickly, especially when teams expose them so cloud-based assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot Studio can reach enterprise tools. Without a gateway, an MCP server URL can become a broad path to whatever the tools behind it can do.

Identity is easy to skip

Many early MCP deployments are launched before enterprise identity, lifecycle, and access reviews are fully mapped to agent tool use.

Tool access is not one-size-fits-all

One MCP server can expose harmless read tools next to write, export, admin, or production actions that need much tighter control.

Audit needs real context

Security teams need to know which person, agent, tool, action, policy, and downstream system were involved in each request.

What the gateway enforces

What Datawiza Agent Gateway enforces for MCP traffic

Datawiza Agent Gateway is the identity-native way to run an MCP gateway. It puts enterprise identity and policy in front of MCP servers without requiring changes to the MCP server code.

Authentication in front of every MCP server

Users and agents sign in through your IdP before any request reaches the MCP server. Access can use Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, or another OIDC-compliant provider.

Tool-level authorization

Filter which tools each identity can discover with tools/list and enforce which tools or actions it can invoke with tools/call.

Rate limiting and usage attribution

Apply per-user and per-agent limits, then attribute usage to real identities for cost control, abuse detection, and operational review.

Credential protection

Keep upstream secrets in the gateway so agents and users never hold the keys to the systems behind your MCP tools.

Audit and SIEM visibility

Record every connection and tool call with authenticated identity, target MCP server, requested tool, policy decision, and outcome.

No MCP server changes

Front existing MCP servers as a reverse proxy. The MCP server code and standard MCP clients stay intact.

Architecture

MCP gateway architecture

Agents and MCP clients connect to the Datawiza gateway endpoint instead of reaching MCP servers directly. The gateway validates identity context, evaluates tool policy, brokers credentials when needed, rate-limits usage, and forwards only approved MCP requests.

Step 1

Agent or MCP client

Authenticates with Entra ID, Okta, or another IdP and receives a signed access token.

Step 2

Datawiza Agent Gateway

Validates issuer, audience, signature, expiry, scopes, and claims, then checks MCP server, tool, and action policy.

Step 3

MCP servers and tools

Receive only approved MCP requests. Denied, approved, and approval-routed decisions are logged.

Identity providers

Entra IDOktaPingAWS IAMOAuth / OIDC

Deployment options

Azure / AWS / Google CloudOn-premises / private networkDatawiza-hosted service

Token validation: trust the IdP token only after Datawiza verifies it.

Tool policy: allow or deny by agent, claim, MCP server, tool, action, and environment.

Audit: record who or what called the tool, which policy matched, and the outcome.

Identity-native control

Why identity is the hard part of MCP security

Most gateway approaches can answer whether a request has a token or key. Enterprise security teams need a stronger answer: which person or agent did this, under whose authority, and what policy allowed it? Agent Gateway binds MCP access to enterprise identity, so lifecycle controls, group changes, disabled accounts, and agent identities matter at the gateway layer.

Enterprise IdP binding

Use Entra ID, Okta, or another OIDC-compliant provider as the source of identity for MCP access decisions.

Context-rich policy

Evaluate user, group, agent, delegated context, server, tool, action, and environment before forwarding a request.

Lifecycle-aware access

Disable a user, revoke an agent credential, or change a group in the IdP and MCP access follows the same lifecycle.

Deployment

How Agent Gateway deploys as an MCP gateway

Agent Gateway runs as a lightweight containerized reverse proxy in your cloud, DMZ, or data center, managed from a central console. Point the MCP server public hostname at the gateway, connect your IdP, define tool policies, and reuse the same deployment model for REST API traffic from agents.

Flexible placement

Deploy close to your MCP servers in cloud, hybrid, DMZ, or private-network environments.

Central policy management

Configure identity, tool policy, rate limits, credential handling, and audit export centrally.

MCP and API coverage

Use the same Agent Gateway control layer for MCP servers, LLM APIs, internal APIs, SaaS APIs, and enterprise tools.

Workflow

How to roll out an MCP gateway with Agent Gateway

The deployment pattern is deliberately simple: put the gateway in the path, connect identity, define policy, then expand from one MCP server to more agent workflows.

1Start with one MCP endpointChoose one MCP server or agent workflow where identity, tool access, rate limits, or audit needs to be enforced before tool calls run.
2Connect enterprise identityConnect Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, or another OIDC-compliant provider so users and agents authenticate before MCP access.
3Set tool and usage policyDefine which identities can discover tools, which tools they can call, which actions are constrained, and where rate limits apply.
4Route, enforce, and auditPoint clients at the gateway endpoint, forward approved traffic to the MCP server, and export identity-rich logs for audit and SIEM review.

Use cases

Common MCP gateway use cases

Cloud-based assistant access

Require sign-in and tool-level policy before cloud-based assistants can reach an enterprise MCP endpoint.

Internal MCP server protection

Protect MCP servers for databases, documents, tickets, ERP workflows, code repositories, and internal APIs.

Least-privilege tool access

Allow read-only tools broadly while restricting write, export, delete, production, or admin actions to approved identities.

Audit and rate-limit enforcement

Attribute usage to real users and agents, throttle high-volume calls, and send decision logs to security tooling.

Comparison