Security, data privacy, reliability, and regulatory compliance are critical factors when evaluating whether to move business applications from in-house, client-hosted environments to a cloud platform. Quality assurance plays a vital role in ensuring that the appropriate level of risk assessment, verification, and validation takes place to ensure business continuity during the migration to a new cloud platform. Vandana Viswanathan shares an introduction to the five components of a sound cloud application validation strategy: cloud provider qualification process, validation strategy development, end-to-end risk-based testing approach development and implementation, governance through change management, and preparation for an organization audit/inspection. As a result, you can create an effective QA plan to verify the implementation of a cloud-hosted solution. Vandana provides tips for developing a tactical approach to ensure your organization is audit/inspection ready and meets the criteria for business, security, and data privacy requirements for both regulated and non-regulated business critical applications.