  Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) is commonly recognized as a key supporting
technology for the emerging 5G systems. When deployed in fully virtualized
networks, i.e., following the Network Function Virtualization (NFV) paradigm,
it will enable a multitude of new applications and use cases. However, the
growing number of devices, combined with the vastly increasing traffic demand,
call for low End-to-End (E2E) latency packet transfer and processing in an NFV
environment, both in user and control plane. In this paper, focusing on control
plane packet traffic, we investigate the general case of a MEC application
consuming a MEC service running on a different MEC host. To enable flexible MEC
platform service consumption at different localities, based on a
state-of-the-art statistical model of the total processing time, we define
latency-aware proximity zones around MEC servers hosting MEC application
instances. Exemplary scenarios exhibit the E2E performance benefit of
introducing the awareness of proximity zones around MEC hosts and service
producing MEC application instances. This performance-aware service consumption
will be beneficial in view of the future evolution towards distributed
computing systems.
