Design logical architecture (Windows SharePoint Services)

Logical architecture is the manner in which logical components of a solution are organized and integrated. In Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, the logical components include Internet Information Services (IIS) application pools, Web applications, zones, policy for Web applications, content databases, site collections, sites, and host-named site collections.



Logical architecture components (Windows SharePoint Services) introduces each of the logical architecture components and discusses the following considerations for each component: capacity, sharing and isolation, configurable items, administration, and planning recommendations.
Plan alternate access mappings (Windows SharePoint Services) provides information about configuring Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to map Web requests to the correct Web applications and sites. It describes how to implement alternate access mappings for common Internet deployment scenarios in which a Web application that receives a request for an internal URL, in one of the five authentication zones, returns pages that contain links to the public URL for the zone.
Plan for host-named site collections (Windows SharePoint Services) provides information about creating host-named site collections to provide a scalable hosting solution with distinct host names for each site collection.
White paper: Create shared hosting solutions on Windows SharePoint Services provides information about using Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to host sites. It explains different recommended hardware architecture solutions, security and authentication issues, ways to add sites and users, and how to configure search.

reference:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287994.aspx