Cloud compliance and governance form the critical oversight framework that ensures cloud infrastructure operates securely within regulatory boundaries while meeting business and legal obligations. As organizations migrate workloads to the cloud, they must navigate an increasingly complex landscape of data privacy laws, industry-specific regulations, security standards, and shared responsibility models that define who owns which security controls. Compliance is not a one-time checkbox — it's a continuous program of policy enforcement, automated monitoring, audit-ready evidence collection, and risk-based decision-making. Understanding the distinction between regulatory requirements (what the law demands), certification standards (what third-party audits validate), and governance frameworks (how you operationalize both) is essential for building resilient, audit-ready cloud environments that scale without sacrificing trust or exposing the organization to regulatory penalties.