Linux "micro-cloud"

[markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org (markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org)]

I have a couple servers in a cambridge colocation, they are rapidly
approaching 10 years old. Needless to say, its time to upgrade.

I currently have 2 dual PIII 800 MHZ each with a gig of ram. I am looking
to replace them with two quad-core AMD AthlonII with 8 gigs of ram. (Total
cost for both motherboads, memory and CPU is $600!!! unbelievable!)

I think I want to set it up a small cloud system. Rather than setup two
machines, one as a database server and the other as a mass-web host, (like
I currently have) I think I want to be more creative.

Keep one as a raw machine that runs the databases, as disk I/O is dog slow
on virtualized hardware, and on the other make it a host a host machine on
which I'll run a one or more virtual machines doing the web and service
hosting. (If there is enough bandwidth, I may run VMs on the database
machine as well)

The the thing I want to discuss...

Are there any "good" vm tools out there that makes this easy. I'm using
VMPlayer and not sure I want to use it. I'd like a command line text
system as these will be remote servers and a GUI is painful remotely.

Any ideas? Suggestions?