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Exits are few, but promising start-ups are still getting funded. Check out these hot spots of activity.

A ray of hope in the hard-knocks economy: Despite few foreseeable exits, early stage investors are still making bets in a handful of promising, high-growth sectors.

In fact, venture capitalists have put only slightly fewer dollars at stake as they did this same time last year, before the financial crisis had gained any traction. In the three quarters ended Sept. 30, venture-capital investment was down just 4%, to $22.3 billion, versus the same period in 2007, according to VentureOne, an industry tracker.

Compare that to the relatively comatose market for initial public offerings, which tends to offer the juiciest exits for VC funds. Measured in dollar terms, the 50 IPOs in the first three quarters raised just $30.5 billion, compared with the 261 deals that yielded $60.5 billion in the first three quarters of last year. Only eight companies went public in the last three months, raising a mere $1 billion.

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Some VCs say the difficult market has made it easier to find promising companies. "There are [fewer] tourists right now who are just pitching," says Guy Kawasaki, managing director at Garage Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund. "That yields a better entrepreneur."

Kenneth G. Brill's "Don't Be Fooled by Pretty Pictures" cautions about using computational fluid dynamics modeling tools, suggesting that they aren't accurate and are a very expensive way to analyze power and cooling air flow in data centers.

While pictures alone don't always tell the true story, CFD analysis is actually a cost-effective and accurate way for technology managers to visualize environmental conditions within a data center. And the color, 3-D graphical pictures that result from a CFD analysis are not only pretty--they can be worth a thousand words when coupled with the analysis, experience and insight of a data center services professional.

An experienced consultant provides strategic planning options for customers to follow, based on a set of parallel efforts to reduce risk and errors as well as assure overall operational improvements. However, a CFD analysis is only one in a complete set of tools at the consultant's disposal.

As Brill stated, a data center consultant needs to play a role akin to an expert physician. But just as a physician wouldn't perform surgery without looking at an X-ray or other image first, a data center manager shouldn't make cooling or heating decisions without a modeling map.

Rather than a pricey, flashy, quick-fix look at how to save on power costs, quality modeling provides great value as a means to evaluate a data center's risks and strengths. CFD models can help services professionals pinpoint exactly where air flow improvements are needed or where to help technology managers adjust capacity planning and budgeting for increased energy efficiency. Usually, the fee for a CFD analysis is very affordable--in the range of $30,000 to $70,000--far less than the $200,000 Brill cited.

A quick survey of technology services providers would show that modeling tools such as a CFD analysis are generally not sold stand alone. In fact, a data center should always be evaluated without modeling first to identify existing inefficiency gaps from non-compliance of best practices before undertaking the more in-depth modeling and analysis. CFD modeling is at its best within data centers where major adherence to best practices are already largely in place.

Once best practices are implemented, CFD will point out data center zones that are out of balance regarding provisioning, information technology loads and return air flows. It will also determine the actual operational condition/capacity of data center Computer Room Air Conditioning or Computer Room Air Handler units. Assumptions about their operational capacity are not in order. For example, the industry's best services consultants would not subcontract the assessment, and they would use a variety of their own power and cooling test and measurement equipment to determine the actual state and capacity of air handlers.