Patent ID: 7957651

Claim:
In an environment that includes an optical transceiver host computing system communicatively couplable to an optical transceiver that has a memory and one or more processors, a method for the optical transceiver host to facilitate purchasing and updating of feature specific microcode that governs behavior of an optical transceiver, the method comprising: an act of the optical transceiver host computing system receiving user input to identify desired transceiver specific operational features to be purchased, wherein each feature is implemented by the one or more processors executing feature specific microcode; an act of the optical transceiver host computing system transmitting a request to purchase the desired transceiver specific operational features; an act of receiving a response to the request to purchase in the form of information by which purchased feature specific microcode corresponding to the desired transceiver specific operational features may be accessed, wherein the response to the request to purchase comprises receiving a purchased decryption key; an act of accessing the purchased feature specific microcode; an act of providing the purchased feature specific microcode to the optical transceiver memory, wherein the desired transceiver specific operational features to be purchased are one or more of an alarm or warning setting, a diagnostics feature, a feature that allows a user to set a plurality of operational parameters, and an off module logging feature; wherein the act of accessing the purchased feature specific microcode comprises decryting encrypted feature specific microcode using the purchased decryption key; and wherein the encrypted feature specific microcode is loaded in a memory local to the optical transceiver host prior to receipt of the user input identifying desired transceiver specific operational features to be purchased.