Like many of its traditional rivals,  Oracle has adopted an  ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ attitude towards OpenStack in an implicit acknowledgment that the project is disrupting the proprietary systems and software that currently account for the bulk of its revenues.  But the database maker has arrived late to the party, allowing the competition to race ahead and establish a beachhead in what is poised to become a very lucrative market in a few years’ time.

Now, in an attempt to catch up with the rest of the industry, Oracle rolling out its very own version of the free cloud platform that runs on latest releases of its Linux distribution and hypervisor. Unveiled on Tuesday and currently in technical preview, the release comes as a response to the efforts of Red Hat to standardize OpenStack deployments atop RHEL.

Having been around for a few years longer, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform offers a number of advantages over Oracle’s distro in terms of functionality. It delivers a level of integration that Larry Ellison’s firm has yet to match and, just as importantly, seamlessly hooks up to the public cloud to allow for workload mobility across on- and off-premise environments. The newest version of the company’s platform-as-a-service stack makes hybrid computing an even more attractive proposition  through a set of improvements meant  to streamline administration.

Debuted two days after Oracle’s OpenStack distribution, OpenShift Enterprise 2.1 automates the provisioning of applications across geographically distributed locations and centralizes the management of performance logs. Plus, it introduces expanded support for third party technologies and new compliance features in addition to the usual slew of bug fixes.

The proliferation of public cloud services in the enterprise is helping to increase worker productivity, but it’s also making it more difficult than ever for IT organizations to enforce data governance and keep the corporate network secure. The unprecedented need for operational visibility beyond the four walls of the organization has spurred a new wave of startups focused entirely on addressing that requirement, with one of the frontrunners recently raising a substantial funding round that acts to further validate this burgeoning segment.

Netskope, a provider of cloud application monitoring and enforcement solutions, announced on Thursday that it has bagged $35 million in Series C financing from Accel Partners and existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and The Social+Capital Partnership. The funding, which brings the Los Altos-based firm’s total raised to over $56 million, will be used to establish a bigger presence in Europe and hire more employees. The company expects to double its current headcount to 200 by the end of the year.

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