Hi Wendell,

Thank you again for your awesome blog - incredibly timely (especially in my case) and very informative. I have a few questions for you.

1) I'm looking at a few 3640 routers - one has a a NM1E2W module. I read on Cisco's site that the NM-1E2W (note "E" not "FE") does not support WIC 2T'S or WIC 2 A/S cards. Does this pan out as true in your experience?? If it is true, are there comparable WICs you would recommend instead, or should I hold out for a NM-1FE2W module? Also - do you have any feelings on a WIC 2T vs a WIC 2A/S?

2) You replied to my last (and first) question (about recommended IOS packages) that the Cisco 12.4 Advanced Security Package will provide the full feature set required for the 4 CCNP exams. My qestion is a two-parter (possibly more parts as I continue typing - but we'll see); 1) Do you still think that the Advanced Security Package provides everything needed for the CCNP (BGP, IDS, Firewall, MPLS, etc)? and 2) How many of the routers that I purchase (or anyone for that matter) for a home lab for CCNP study would you recommend have that IOS and Feature set? Because I can't imagine that one router running BGP would have a very interesting time doing so if nothing else connected to it was able to run that routing protocol.

3) The CCNP self-study book for the BCSI recommends a home lab setup that contains 11 routers. Granted 4 routers in Pod A and 4 routers in Pod B are carbon copies of each other, but even if we take 1 pod out, we're still left with 7 routers. 7 and 3 are pretty far apart. If one was on a limited budget but wanted to follow the exercies and configuration in the book - which routers would you recommend excising? Would you make the pod only 2 routers and keep the 3 backbone routers, or something else? How much of their network can we cut out and still get the meat of the matter, in your opinion?

Thank you for your patience with this long (winded-heh) question, and for your help. I look forward to your reply, and to your future blogs!

Cheers!

Jim Woodward