# How MCP Servers Work > For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/llms.txt). Component-specific: [agentic-data-plane-full.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane-full.txt) --- title: How MCP Servers Work latest-operator-version: v26.2.1 latest-console-tag: v3.9.0 latest-connect-version: 4.104.0 latest-redpanda-tag: v26.2.1 docname: mcp-overview page-component-name: agentic-data-plane page-version: master page-component-version: master page-component-title: Agentic Data Plane page-relative-src-path: mcp-overview.adoc page-edit-url: https://github.com/redpanda-data/adp-docs/edit/main/modules/connect/pages/mcp-overview.adoc description: Connect AI agents to your databases, APIs, and business systems through managed MCP servers Redpanda hosts for you, or self-managed servers you register with Agentic Data Plane. page-topic-type: overview personas: agent_builder, platform_engineer learning-objective-1: Explain how AI agents connect to tools through MCP servers in Agentic Data Plane learning-objective-2: Distinguish managed from self-managed MCP server backends and choose the right type for your use case learning-objective-3: Identify key MCP capabilities including tool discovery, authentication, and code mode page-git-created-date: "2026-05-28" page-git-modified-date: "2026-08-03" --- The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is how AI agents talk to tools. In the Agentic Data Plane, you create **MCP Servers** that agents can connect to. Each MCP server exposes a set of [tools](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/reference/glossary/#tool), [resources](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/reference/glossary/#resource), and [prompts](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/reference/glossary/#prompt) that an agent can discover at runtime through `tools/list` and invoke through structured JSON-RPC calls. Redpanda handles upstream credentials, authentication flows, observability, and aggregation, so you can focus on what your agents do, not on the plumbing. After reading this page, you will be able to: - Explain how AI agents connect to tools through MCP servers in Agentic Data Plane - Distinguish managed from self-managed MCP server backends and choose the right type for your use case - Identify key MCP capabilities including tool discovery, authentication, and code mode Redpanda offers two kinds of MCP server backends: | Backend | When to use | | --- | --- | | Managed | Redpanda hosts the server in-process. You pick a type from the marketplace (SQL, Kafka, Slack, Jira, OpenAPI, and many more) and configure it with your credentials. No infrastructure to run. | | Self-managed | You already run an MCP server somewhere and want Redpanda to proxy it for authentication, observability, aggregation, and agent access. Redpanda fronts your server with a managed URL and resolves authentication at the gateway. | The default catalog covers databases, cloud and productivity services, streaming systems, and communication tools. See [Managed catalog](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/managed/managed-catalog/) for the full list. ## [](#when-to-use-each)When to use each | Concern | Managed | Self-managed | | --- | --- | --- | | Infrastructure ownership | Redpanda hosts and operates | You host and operate | | Upstream credentials | Redpanda secret store; per-type schema | Redpanda secret store or token vault; you control the upstream authentication | | Custom tool logic | Limited to what the type exposes | Anything the MCP protocol supports | | Startup latency | In-process; effectively zero | Network round-trip to your endpoint | | Upgrade cadence | Redpanda manages | You manage | ## [](#whats-in-redpanda-agentic-data-plane)What’s in Redpanda Agentic Data Plane Agentic Data Plane has these top-level areas: - **LLM Providers**: OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, Google AI, OpenAI-compatible endpoints. See [Configure your LLM provider](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/gateway/configure-provider/). - **MCP Servers**: You are here. Both managed and self-managed servers live in this list. - **My Connections**: Each user’s own per-user OAuth connections for user-delegated MCP servers. See [User-delegated OAuth](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/user-delegated-oauth/). - **Integrations setup**: The admin home for OAuth plumbing. Its **Outbound providers** tab holds reusable upstream OAuth provider definitions used by user-delegated MCP authentication (see [Configure an OAuth Provider](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/oauth-providers/)); its **Inbound clients** tab holds external tools registered to request access tokens from the gateway (see [Connect Remote MCP Clients](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/remote-mcp-clients/)). ## [](#key-capabilities)Key capabilities - **Tool discovery**: After you create or register a server, Redpanda performs a live `tools/list` against it and populates the server’s detail page so you can see which tools are visible to agents. - **Service-account and user-delegated authentication**: Pick a single shared upstream identity for all callers, or have each end-user authenticate against the upstream system with their own credentials. - **Code mode**: For a server with a large tool catalog, turn on code mode to expose just two tools, `search` and `execute`, so an agent can find tools by regex and run them through a JavaScript sandbox instead of loading every tool definition into its context. See [Code Mode](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/gateway/code-mode/). - **Inspector**: Test each tool, resource, and prompt directly from Agentic Data Plane before pointing an agent at the server. See [Test a server’s tools](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/test-tools/). ## [](#next-steps)Next steps - [Create an MCP Server](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/create-server/) - [Register a Self-Managed MCP Server](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/register-remote/) - [Plug in an App, Database, or Tool](https://docs.redpanda.com/agentic-data-plane/connect/managed/managed-catalog/)