This document discusses design considerations for a SharePoint 2010 farm. It describes a logical three-tier farm topology with web front end, application, and database servers. It also discusses using service applications, databases, and small farm topologies like an intranet production farm and staging/integration test farm. Virtualization is recommended for roles other than SQL Server databases. The document provides examples of physical topologies for intranet/collaboration, extranet collaboration, and internet publishing farms.