A company runs an application on Amazon EC2 instances that connects to an Amazon Aurora database. The EC2 instances use usernames and passwords stored locally in a file. The company wants to minimize the operational overhead of managing credentials. What should a solutions architect do?

AWS Secrets Manager is the most appropriate solution for managing database credentials. It allows you to store, retrieve, and rotate database credentials automatically, significantly reducing operational overhead. Turning on automatic rotation ensures that credentials are regularly updated without manual intervention, enhancing security. AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store can store secrets, but it lacks the built-in automatic rotation capabilities specifically designed for database credentials that Secrets Manager offers. Storing credentials in an Amazon S3 bucket, even encrypted, requires the application to retrieve them, manage decryption, and handle rotation manually, which increases operational overhead and introduces security risks if not implemented carefully. Creating encrypted Amazon EBS volumes for credential storage doesn't address the core problem of credential rotation and secure retrieval; it merely encrypts the storage medium, still requiring manual management of the credentials themselves.