Supporting SP1 and SP2 Databases

Microsoft states you should use 2 separate machines, one for maintaining SP1
builds and another for SP2 builds. This sounds like this could be a
maintenance nightmare. Is there any way to use the same server but just use
different databases? For example, an SP1 database and an SP2 database on the
same computer. Also mentioned is to restore an SP1 database and repository
for supporting my SP1 images. This also sounds like a nightmare. Anyone else
doing this?
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