Recently Microsoft released couple of guides which basically target IT Professionals who are responsible for installing and managing infrastructure (web servers, Active Directory, Terminal Services, etc). Some of the technologies such as Active Directory, IIS 7.0, Terminal Services, etc are covered in those guides. Check them out @ the following URL Infrastructure Planning and Design.

If you are a Software Architect then I am sure there are times when you are asked for some recommendations, ideas, and suggestions about the hardware and overall system architecture which will run the applications that you architect. Since most of us are developing web applications these days, hence IIS is the backend technology that we should learn, explore and play with whenever we get a chance. One of the guides available @ the above URL is on IIS 7.0 and I think every Architect should read it in order to get some idea about the factors involved while taking decisions about the architecture for IIS 7.0 environment.