SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is deploying a containerized microservices architecture on Amazon ECS with Fargate. They need to securely store and rotate database credentials. Which AWS service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store (which can store secrets) with AWS Secrets Manager, but Parameter Store lacks native automatic rotation and is not designed for managing database credential lifecycles, making Secrets Manager the correct choice for this specific requirement.
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
AWS Secrets Manager is the correct choice because it is purpose-built for securely storing, automatically rotating, and managing the lifecycle of database credentials. It integrates natively with Amazon ECS and Fargate via task role permissions, allowing containers to retrieve secrets at runtime without hardcoding them. Secrets Manager also supports automatic rotation of credentials for Amazon RDS, Aurora, and other databases, which directly addresses the requirement for credential rotation.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS CloudHSM
Why it's wrong here
CloudHSM provides dedicated hardware security modules for key operations; it stores cryptographic keys, not database credentials, and offers no rotation mechanism for them. It is tempting because it delivers strong key custody, and would be correct where the requirement is FIPS 140-2 Level 3 key storage rather than credential management.
- ✗
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles
Why it's wrong here
IAM roles grant temporary AWS API permissions to tasks; they hold no database credential values and cannot rotate them. It is tempting because Fargate tasks assume roles for AWS access, and would be correct where the requirement is authorising calls to AWS services rather than storing and rotating secrets.
- ✗
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store
Why it's wrong here
Parameter Store holds configuration values including secrets, but its rotation requires a custom Lambda and it lacks native database credential rotation. It is tempting because it is a managed, low-cost parameter store, and would be correct for plain configuration data or where no automated rotation is needed.
- ✓
AWS Secrets Manager
Why this is correct
AWS Secrets Manager natively rotates database credentials via Lambda rotation functions, satisfying the stem's rotation requirement without custom code. Unlike Systems Manager Parameter Store, it provides built-in rotation scheduling and native RDS integration. Credentials are retrieved at runtime through IAM policies, keeping secrets out of task definitions and images.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This SAP-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 SAP-C02 exam.