Patent ID: 8261357

Claim:
A license entitlement key distribution system comprising: a communication device comprising, a processor, a small form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceiver communication interface, a secret key, a first machine-readable storage medium comprising, a license entitlement key generation module executable by the processor; a configuration module executable by the processor, the configuration module configured to select a configuration setting based on a generated license entitlement key and to configure the communication device based on the configuration setting; wherein the configuration setting in a first mode configures the communication device to process first protocol communications, and the configuration setting in a second mode configures the communication device to process second protocol communications; and an SFP transceiver comprising, a second machine-readable storage medium configured to store an SFP configuration value, and a device communication port configured to communicatively couple the SFP transceiver with the SFP transceiver communication interface; and wherein upon communicatively coupling the SFP transceiver to the communication device, the license entitlement key generation module generates the generated license entitlement key based on the SFP configuration value and the secret key.