MCP is easy to start with. Running it for a team is a different story.
I've been experimenting with MCP for a while, and one of the things I like about it is how easy it is to get started. You find an MCP server, add it to Claude, Cursor, VS Code, or another compatible client, configure the credentials it needs, and you're basically done. For a developer working locally, this model makes a lot of sense. But while working with more MCP servers, I started wondering…
MCP is simple to start using, but managing it for a team becomes more complex. When a team of 10 developers uses different MCP servers for various services, configuration and credentials become distributed. Managing these distributed credentials and access becomes challenging as credentials need to be stored, rotated, and managed for each developer.
The problem of managing infrastructure through MCP is similar to managing databases, APIs, and cloud infrastructure. Access control becomes more granular as multiple users interact with the same MCP infrastructure, requiring authentication and authorization for different tools and services. Auditing becomes important to track actions taken by AI assistants using MCP servers, involving user identification, server usage, tool calls, and timestamps.
This situation resembles the evolution of APIs, where a simple application connects directly to an API, but as systems grow, an API gateway is introduced for centralized management of authentication, authorization, routing, policies, and logging. A similar approach could be applied to MCP, with clients connecting through a common layer for centralized credential management and access decisions.
This concept is being explored in an open-source project called MCPlama, which aims to add a gateway/control-plane to manage the infrastructure around MCP servers.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
