# Integrating Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) into Open 5G Core
## 4 A New Service Proposed  
The benefits of MEC and how they can positively impact 5G networks have already been presented. However, to make it possible to combine the two technologies, it is necessary to develop a component that allows communication and follows the established standards. One of the possibilities is a communication service implemented through an application or as a service part of an MEC platform, specifying this communication using an application and speeding up the launch and deployment process [16]. Another possibility is to deploy the service as part of the MEC platform. However, integrating the entire service structure into the MEC platform is non-trivial. Thus, this work aims to specify a communication API that provides a communication service deployed as an application. This service must allow UE applications to interact with their respective server applications isolated internally on the MEC platform. Thus, the service must receive information \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l l} \hline \hline
[16] MEC in 5G Networks & X & X & & \\ \hline
[31] A New Approach to 5G and MEC Integration & X & X & & \\ \hline
[23] Toward Slicing-Enabled Multi-Access Edge Computing in 5G & X & & X & X & \\ \hline
[33] On O-RAN, MEC, SON and Network Slicing integration & X & & X & \\ \hline This Paper & X & X & & X & X \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Comparison of this proposal with related work. about the destination and the content to be sent and relay it after validating its existence. The service must then wait for a response and return it to the requester. This flow is repeated in both directions. Information about the destination must be sent in the request's body so that the service can process it and understand how to carry out this routing. A level of security is implemented by using tokens to access the proposed service. The SR will generate this token. Initially, this work does not aim to transfer media files, which is one of the possible future extensions. The integration service, deployed as an application, will run on the MEC, specifically on the MEP component. MEP is an internal component of MEC HOST, which also has MEC Applications as part of its scope, so these are the MEC components covered by this work. The communication service run by MEP will provide communication between 5G and MEC Applications via the 3 GPP N6 interface. The signaling that takes place between UE and 5 GC is outside the scope of this work. These components can be seen in the proposal architecture shown in Figure 2.  
Figure 2 also shows the structure of the 5 GC, with its SMF connected to the UPF via the \(N4\) interface. It can be seen that the core has two UPFs and only one SMF, made possible by the SBA architecture model. In order to prevent the transmission of N6 upstream policies to the UPF, which consistently includes the 5 GS, a loosely interconnected data plane node (D-Plane) is presumed with one or multiple UPFs [34]. The image shows the gNB radio interface and representations of applications that communicate with the MEC. It is important to note that this study does not consider the internal communication of the core between the NFs and the radio interface. The implementation of this service will involve two main functions: _postData_ and _makeRequest_. The first of these is the _postData_ function. Its primary function will be to route packets, i.e., when a packet arrives, it will look at the information in its body, identifying the destination of that information and which HTTP method will be used. The data model specified for this function includes receiving the IP address of the destination service, the HTTP method to be used, and the information to be sent. Having received the above information, the _makeRequest_ function is invoked. This function is tasked with passing the data on to its final destination. With the information received previously, a new request will be made, but this will be made to the final destination of that information, awaiting a response.