A company must retain backups of Amazon RDS DB instances and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) volumes in geographically distant locations (hundreds of miles apart). Which option meets this requirement with the least operational effort?

The correct option leverages AWS Backup's native cross-Region copy feature, which automates the replication of backups to a geographically distant AWS Region. This directly addresses the requirement for backups hundreds of miles apart with minimal operational overhead, as AWS Backup manages the entire process. Incorrect options: Specifying multiple Availability Zones (AZs) as destinations within the same Region does not meet the "hundreds of miles apart" requirement, as AZs are typically within the same metropolitan area. Using Amazon Data Lifecycle Manager (DLM) to create backups and then relying on S3 bucket replication is less integrated for RDS and EBS snapshots than AWS Backup, and adds a manual step for S3 replication setup. Using DLM with a Lambda function and EventBridge to copy backups to another Region introduces significant operational complexity and custom development compared to AWS Backup's built-in functionality.