Multi-Cloud Governance through Policy-as-Code and Automated Security Posture Management for Regulatory Compliance

Abstract

Multi-cloud computing has become an essential strategy for enterprises seeking scalability, flexibility, operational resilience, and cost optimization. However, managing regulatory compliance across heterogeneous cloud platforms introduces significant challenges, including inconsistent security policies, fragmented visibility, configuration drift, and increasing audit complexity. This research proposes a unified governance framework integrating Policy-as-Code (PaC) with automated Security Posture Management to strengthen regulatory compliance across multi-cloud environments. The proposed framework translates regulatory requirements into machine-readable policies that can be continuously evaluated against cloud configurations, identities, network controls, encryption settings, and data protection mechanisms. Automated compliance assessment identifies policy violations, assigns risk priorities, and initiates corrective workflows through infrastructure automation and continuous integration pipelines. The methodology combines architectural modeling, regulatory control mapping, policy validation, configuration assessment, and comparative evaluation using representative multi-cloud scenarios. Key evaluation dimensions include compliance detection accuracy, policy enforcement consistency, remediation latency, false-positive rates, and audit evidence completeness. The framework emphasizes centralized governance while preserving platform-specific enforcement capabilities across public and private cloud infrastructures. It also incorporates exception management, policy versioning, traceable approvals, and human oversight for high-impact remediation activities. The proposed approach aims to reduce manual compliance effort, improve security visibility, and establish repeatable governance practices. The research provides an extensible foundation for organizations seeking continuous compliance assurance, stronger accountability, and consistent security governance in dynamic, distributed cloud environments.