entory of hardware, the hardware can be drop-shipped from the manufacturer directly to the customer site. Another model could leverage the service provider retail locations for stocking uCPEs and if a customer needs a site up the same day, they can get one at the nearby retail location. In order for the Phone Home solution to be successful, it has to be secure as it will have to map the hardware unit to a specific secure customer domain. The first level of authentication will be hardware based, a burned-in item such as the unit's serial number or MAC address is passed from the uCPE to the Phone Home server. The service provider will know what MAC address or serial number was shipped to the customer site SO once this comes in, they know that the device is attempt- ing to obtain its initial configuration. However, this is not secure enough; let us say the device was lost or stolen during shipment and someone tries to plug it in, there is a possibility a rogue entity could gain access to the customer's pri- vate network space. Therefore, a second level of authentication is required. The Phone Home server will then generate an email or text message to the customer's administrative contact with a unique authentication code that can be used to fully authenticate the uCPE. This is outlined in Figure 10.18. 10.8 CONCLUSION The rise of mobility and cloud continues unabated, and both of these major trends are driving business requirements for simplified networking models. With virtualization and programmability concepts such as SDN, the industry as a whole has just started its journey toward the next-generation networking environment. As vendors, service providers, and customers focus on the need for sim- plicity, they will continue to accelerate the current momentum toward a software-centric network- ing model. Continued innovation in general purpose hardware, open source software and APIs, management simplicity, and performance optimization are the key to success of this evolution. Building the Network of the Future Phon