General VirtualBox Newbie

[juberish]

Hello, I've just started a new job at a small company whose running several servers off underpowered desktop PC's. I come from larger, enterprise environments where I'm accustomed to having an ESX team who would build out VM's for me whenever I submited a ticket. So I'm familiar with the nature of how an ESX server works, but have not personally administered one. Once I saw that my new company was running it's BES, Peachtree and ContactWise from P4 desktop's, I immediately thought of virtualization. But alas, I'm a newbie.

VirtualBox seems very appealing to me due to the cost, lol. But I need a little more information before I can determine if this is the right siolution for me. I've read that VB has a "server" mode and can operate without a GUI but I'm not finding too much information on this online. Has anyone here used VB in this way? If so, does anyone have experience or advice in running a BES, ContactWise or Peachtree within VirtualBox?

Thanks for your help!

[juberish]

I should also clarify; can anyone spell out to me the differences, considering my specific needs, between VB and other free solutions like Windows Virtual Server or VMWare Server?

[stefan.becker]

Why not use Wikipedia?

You will find many descriptions for these products. First read and come back again, if you have questions.

[juberish]

Wikipedia doesn't offer personal accounts from people who have actually implemented Virtual Box, much less any information on how a BES performs. I think it's kind of funny that I would be referred to Wikipedia as a valid source of thorough information; am I wrong to assume that the Virtual Box community is the best place for some insight from those who have actually used the software?