If you are new to virtualization, you may want to learn about other virtualization technologies:
Virtualbox: http://www.virtualbox.org/
Open VZ: http://openvz.org
QEMU: http://bellard.org/qemu/
Microsoft Virtual PC: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx
Xen: http://www.xen.org/
Proxmox: http://www.proxmox.com
Citrix XenServer: http://www.citrix.com/products/xenserver/overview.html
VMware: http://www.vmware.com
Each of the above has certain strengths and advantages in terms of cost, popularity, efficiency, and code openness. There are many other OS level virtualization packages you can experiment with, see a list at this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_virtual_machines
