Shannon Williams, Author at Obot AI

Shannon Williams

Shannon Williams is the Co‑founder and President of Obot AI, the open‑source control plane for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Obot helps enterprises securely adopt AI assistants by providing a governed, scalable foundation for discovering, hosting, and managing MCP servers across the organization. Before Obot, Shannon co‑founded Rancher Labs and served as President, helping build Rancher into the leading Kubernetes management platform. Following Rancher’s acquisition by SUSE, he became SUSE’s Chief Revenue Officer, leading global go‑to‑market for the company’s cloud‑native portfolio. Shannon’s career sits at the intersection of open source, enterprise infrastructure, and emerging technologies. He served on the Governing Board of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and has worked with organizations worldwide to adopt next‑generation platforms—from containers and Kubernetes to cloud computing and now AI. Earlier, he co‑founded Cloud.com, a pioneer in cloud orchestration acquired by Citrix in 2011, where he later served as VP of Market Development. A frequent speaker, he shares perspectives on AI, DevOps, open source, cloud, security, and entrepreneurship. He sits on the board of the Coral Reef Alliance and is a passionate supporter of environmental stewardship. Short version (if you need a tighter author blurb) Shannon Williams is Co‑founder and President of Obot AI, the open‑source control plane for MCP. Previously, he co‑founded Rancher Labs (acquired by SUSE) and served as SUSE’s CRO. A former CNCF Governing Board member, he has led teams helping enterprises adopt Kubernetes, cloud, and now AI. He also serves on the board of the Coral Reef Alliance.

Articles

The MCP Maturity Model: Full Framework Now Available

We’re releasing the full MCP Maturity Model—a practical framework with stage definitions, readiness checklists, and implementation guidance to help enterprises move from shadow adoption to scaled deployment. Includes real-world patterns we’re seeing and how Obot supports each stage.

What Is an MCP Gateway? Why Enterprises Are Adopting a Control Plane for MCP

MCP made it easy to connect AI to tools. Scale made it messy. Here’s a plain-English answer to “What is an MCP Gateway?”—and how it turns ad hoc MCP sprawl into an enterprise platform.

The Practical MCP Tools Landscape — Who’s Building What, and How to Pick the Pieces

If you want to understand the Model Context Protocol (MCP) ecosystem today, don’t start with buzzwords — start with the tools. MCP isn’t a single product: it’s a set of conventions that a growing number of projects and companies use to let LLMs call out to real systems. That means the ecosystem is naturally fragmented […]

Obot AI Secures $35M Seed to Build Enterprise MCP Gateway

Obot raises $35M seed funding to accelerate development of its enterprise-grade MCP Gateway—enhancing governance, security, and scalability for MCP deployments.

MCP Hosting: Building a Strategy for Deploying and Running MCP Servers in the Enterprise

Discover how to build a secure, scalable MCP hosting strategy—manage single-tenant, shared, and third-party MCP servers with centralized governance and control.

Introducing Nanobot: A New Framework for Turning MCP Servers into AI Agents

Turn your MCP servers into fully interactive AI agents with Nanobot — get reasoning, tool orchestration, UI components, and rich agent behavior in one open-source framework.

Update on the MCP Registry Project, new ChatGPT support for MCP and what it means for Enterprise AI

Learn about the launch of the MCP Registry, ChatGPT’s new MCP support, and how enterprises can use Obot’s MCP Gateway for secure discovery, governance & control.

Deep dive into the Obot MCP Gateway

Get an in-depth look at the Obot MCP Gateway: architecture, access control, security features, cataloging, and observability for enterprise MCP adoption.

Why Every Organization Needs an Enterprise MCP Strategy

Explore why enterprise-level MCP strategies are becoming mission-critical—empowering CIOs with scalable, secure AI tools and setting the stage for widespread MCP adoption.

Building an MCP Registry: Why It Matters and How to Get It Right

Discover how to build an enterprise-grade MCP registry – centralize discovery, ensure governance, automate onboarding, and maintain secure AI infrastructure at scale.

Managing Access Control for MCP Servers in the Enterprise

Learn how to implement enterprise-grade access control for MCP servers—integrate with identity providers, scale securely, simplify IT management, and ensure compliance.

What Is Secure MCP Access? Why It Matters for Enterprise AI

Understanding secure MCP access and how to achieve it is critical for anyone adopting MCP across their organization.

The Value of an MCP Proxy: Security, Control, and Observability for Enterprise AI

Learn why an MCP Proxy is essential for enterprise AI—enabling centralized security, access control, and observability for trusted MCP workflows.

Evaluating Enterprise MCP Gateways

Explore how to evaluate enterprise MCP gateways — comparing Obot, Microsoft, IBM on security, catalog, deployment, integration, observability, and extensibility.