Speaking of licenses, if you have Windows Server 2008 (or 2008 R2) Enterprise the license allows you one physical installation and four virtual installations, just in case you didn't know.
you may want to look at using Hyper-V with Server 2008 or 2008R2 – it's reasonably quick and works pretty well with Windows guests. Definitely not as capable as vSphere but it's included with your existing Windows licenses at least.
