Systems and methods for a configurable communication device

A method for configuring a communication device, the method comprising:

• communicatively coupling a small form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceiver with a communication device, the SFP transceiver comprising a network communication port configured to communicatively couple the SFP transceiver to a network;
• accessing an SFP configuration value stored on the SFP transceiver;
• accessing a secret key stored on the communication device;
• generating a license entitlement key using the SFP configuration value and the secret key using a license entitlement key generation module operating on the communication device;
• configuring the communication device in one of the first mode and the second mode based on the license entitlement key;
• and
• processing communications received via the network communication port according to a first communications protocol in the first mode and according to a second communications protocol in the second mode.

A communication device configured to receive a small form-factor pluggable (SFP) transceiver, the SFP transceiver comprising an SFP configuration value, the communication device comprising:

• a processor;
• a secret key,
• an SFP transceiver interface configured to communicatively couple the SFP transceiver to the communication device;
• and
• a first machine-readable storage medium comprising,
• a configuration module executable by the processor, the configuration module configured to select a configuration setting of the communication device based at least in part on the SFP configuration value,
• a license entitlement key generation module executable on the processor and configured to generate a license entitlement key based on the SFP configuration value and the secret key;
• wherein upon communicatively coupling the SFP transceiver to the communication device, the license entitlement key generation module generates the license entitlement key and the configuration module configures the communication device in one of the first mode and the second mode based on the generated license entitlement key,
• wherein the communication device is configured in the first mode to process communications received via a network communication port according to a first communications protocol and is configured in the second mode to process communications received via the network communication port according to a second communications protocol.