DOP-C02 Security and Compliance Practice Question
A DevOps engineer is designing a CI/CD pipeline that deploys code to an EC2 instance. The engineer needs to securely store and retrieve database credentials used by the application. Which AWS service should be used?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
AWS Secrets Manager
WS Secrets Manager (Option C) because it is specifically designed for securely storing, managing, and automatically rotating database credentials and other secrets. Amazon S3 with server-side encryption (Option A) is an object storage service and not intended for secret management; it lacks automatic rotation and fine-grained access control for secrets. AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store (Option B) can store secrets but does not natively support automatic rotation, which is a key requirement for database credentials. AWS Key Management Service (Option D) manages encryption keys, not secrets themselves, and is used for encryption, not secret storage.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Amazon S3 with server-side encryption
Why it's wrong here
S3 is not designed for secret management.
- ✗
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store
Why it's wrong here
Parameter Store can store secrets but does not have built-in automatic rotation.
- ✓
AWS Secrets Manager
Why this is correct
Secrets Manager provides secure storage and automatic rotation of secrets.
- ✗
AWS Key Management Service (KMS)
Why it's wrong here
KMS manages encryption keys, not secrets.
Quick reference
AWS S3 Storage Class Comparison
| Storage Class | Min Duration | Retrieval | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | None | Immediate | Frequently accessed data |
| S3 Standard-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Infrequent access, rapid retrieval |
| S3 One Zone-IA | 30 days | Immediate | Non-critical infrequent data |
| S3 Intelligent-Tiering | None | Immediate–hours | Unknown or changing access patterns |
| S3 Glacier Instant | 90 days | Milliseconds | Archive with instant retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Flexible | 90 days | Minutes–hours | Archive, flexible retrieval |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | 180 days | Hours | Long-term compliance archive |
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
This DOP-C02 question is part of Courseiva's 251-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This DOP-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the DOP-C02 exam.