It’s been an interesting week for the platform-as-a-service market. Following in Google’s lead, Russian search giant Yandex announced that it’s jumping headfirst into the cloud fray with a new tool for creating web hosting apps. Dubbed Cocaine, the open source platform utilizes the increasingly popular Docker container engine to address the complexity and performance issues associated with VM-based PaaS offerings. The software can only run applications written in C++, Python and JavaScript, but a forthcoming update is set to add support for Java and Lisp offshot Racket. Unlike Google App Engine, which limits customers to deploying their software on the search giant’s infrastructure, Cocaine allows users to run their applications in any compatible environment. Yandex is already taking advantage of this functionality to power some of its operational workloads.

The other industry heavyweight to expand its public cloud presence this week is VMware, which announced on Wednesday that it’s bringing the vCloud Hybrid Service to the UK with a new data center in Slough, a town 20 miles west of London. First announced at VMworld 2013, vCloud Hybrid lets customers extend their private infrastructure to the cloud without changing the way they manage their applications. Select clients will be able to participate in a private beta for the platform starting in fourth quarter until it becomes generally available early next year.

Avaya is also pushing the cloud envelope with a new framework that allows corporate developers to integrate collaboration elements into everyday operations. The culmination of six years of work and $2.5 billion in funding, Aura Collaboration automates session management across messaging, chat, video and streaming media services to help organizations better engage their end-users. The platform can be used for a wide range of applications, from checking up on patients to improving communications between disparate teams.