Start-Up Locust Storage Out of Stealth Mode

Locust Storage, provider of the first generation of cleantech storage for the enterprise, has been selected as the winner of the first Innovation Competition at GreenBeat 2009, the seminal conference on the Smart Grid. With its Smart Power Down enterprise storage system, which delivers high-performance and high-capacity storage with a 90 percent reduction in power compared to today’s legacy storage providers, Locust Storage was selected from more than 50 applications as the company most likely to make the next generation of the smart grid a reality by both a panel of expert judges and GreenBeat 2009 attendees.

Locust CEO and Founder Seth Georgion noted: "We are very proud that Locust’s launch and immediate recognition at GreenBeat 2009 shows the excitement surrounding the first generation of cleantech enterprise storage. Customers are already recognizing the disruptive cost advantages and the massive environmental benefits associated with Locust Storage."

The GreenBeat 2009 Innovation Competition winner was selected by a panel of expert judges, including Accel Partners’ Rich Wong, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Tim Carey, KPMG’s Craig Lobdell and Spring Ventures founder Sunil Paul. The Innovation Competition itself was hosted by Mayfield Fund and moderated by the firm’s managing director Navin Chaddha. Locust Power also won the coveted People’s Choice award, a survey of GreenBeat 2009 attendees, consisting of technology executives, venture capitalists, investment bankers, policymakers, utility executives and other Smart Grid stakeholders.

Founded in April 2009, Locust’s mission is to take enterprise data availability, capacity and throughput rates to new levels, while dramatically reducing upfront acquisition costs and ongoing energy, maintenance and scale-out costs.

"We were recently informed that we won an extensive competitive evaluation conducted by one of our beta-customers," added Georgion. "The financial and performance benefits we offered were too compelling to ignore."

Locust Smart Power Down Slashes the Energy Bill
Storage disks in Locust systems are intelligently and automatically powered on and off in response to specific requests for data, as opposed to today’s systems, which consume energy for all data stored, all the time. Up to 80 percent of enterprise data can be untouched in any three month period, yet today that idle data consumes a tremendous amount of energy while ‘waiting’ to be accessed. Locust eliminates this incredibly wasteful use of energy and yet retains performance with an energy-efficient solid state front-end architecture.

Storage Power over Ethernet
Enables ‘Prius-Like’ Capability
Locust has also innovated by providing the industry’s first Power over Ethernet (PoE) Hybrid Drive for enterprise storage, which dramatically improves power management. This Locust innovation takes PoE and combines it with a Lithium Ion battery reservoir to form a smart-grid ready system that can provide extra energy when needed, yet efficiently conserve and store excess energy when demand is low. The Power over Ethernet Hybrid Drive enables eliminates AC/DC power conversion and cooling fans from the storage unit and delivers a ‘Prius-like’ technology into the datacenter. Locust utilizes ubiquitous Ethernet – in conjunction with innovative software – to enable Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch infrastructure to construct ‘Internet-level’ scalability, at the lowest possible cost.

Fast Cloud Technology Delivers High-Performance
Locust architecture also includes a new data redundancy and protection mechanism that ensures all data is written sequentially for optimal overall throughput. When combined with front-end solid state technology and high-speed 10GbE connectivity, Locust delivers extremely high throughput for data-intensive applications.

Locust Storage systems will be generally available in 2010.