 to manage the provisioning, selection, and ordering of the 5G Network Architecture MEC applications. The user application life cycle management proxy is a function that the MEC-related clients and applications use to request services related to onboarding, instantia- tion, and termination of the applications. This proxy can be used to request transfer of the application from the MEC system to the external cloud or to the MEC system from the external cloud. More specifically, the ME system-level management includes the ME orchestrator as its core component, which has an overall view of the complete ME system. The ME host-level management comprises the ME platform manager and the VIM, which handles the management of the ME-specific functionality of a particular ME host and the applications running on it. The ME host is an entity that contains the ME platform and a virtualization infrastructure which provides compute, storage, and network resources for the ME applications. The virtualization infrastructure includes a data plane that executes the traffic rules received by the ME platform, and routes the traffic among applications, ser- vices, DNS server/proxy, 54 3GPP network, local networks, and external networks. The ME platform is responsible for offering an environment where the ME applications can discover, advertise, consume, and offer ME services, including ME services available via other platforms; receiving traffic rules from the ME platform manager, applications, or ser- vices; and instructing the data plane. This includes the translation of tokens representing UEs in the traffic rules into specific IP addresses, receiving DNS records from the ME plat- form manager, configuring a DNS proxy/server, hosting ME services, and providing access to persistent storage and ToD information. The ME applications run as VMs on top of the virtualization infrastructure provided by the ME host, and can interact with the ME platform to utilize and provide ME services. Under certain conditions, the ME applications can also 