SAP-C02 Design for New Solutions Practice Question
A company is designing a new microservices architecture using AWS Lambda. Each microservice has its own database. The company wants to securely store database credentials and rotate them automatically. Which AWS service should be used?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often confuse Parameter Store's secure string parameter with Secrets Manager, but Parameter Store lacks native automatic rotation, which is the critical requirement in this question.
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 specifically designed to securely store, manage, and automatically rotate database credentials for services like Amazon RDS, Redshift, and DocumentDB. It supports built-in rotation with AWS Lambda, ensuring credentials are rotated on a schedule without manual intervention, which directly meets the requirement for automatic rotation in a microservices architecture.
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 Key Management Service (KMS)
Why it's wrong here
KMS manages encryption keys, not secrets.
- ✗
AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store
Why it's wrong here
Parameter Store does not support automatic rotation.
- ✗
AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Why it's wrong here
IAM is not for storing secrets.
- ✓
AWS Secrets Manager
Why this is correct
Secrets Manager supports automatic rotation.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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