Deploying SharePoint made easy

I'm currently planning and executing a SharePoint deployment for an organisation of about 500 people that produce an awful lot of document a year. After some initial planning we decided to use three servers to support SharePoint (1 for web/search, 1 for indexing and 1 for the databases). But how do you setup such an environment and what are the considerations?

After looking around I found the Microsoft Solution Accelator for Intranets that perfectly details this. A great help. My discussion with both the functional as with the IT Support people where very productive because we based the decision making on these documents.