How can the organization most effectively avoid creating duplicates in each Mule application of the credentials required to access the backend systems?

An organization has various integrations implemented as Mule applications. Some of these Mule applications are deployed to custom hosted Mule runtimes (on-premises) while others execute in the MuleSoft-hosted runtime plane (CloudHub). To perform the Integra functionality, these Mule applications connect to various backend systems, with multiple applications typically needing to access the backend systems.

How can the organization most effectively avoid creating duplicates in each Mule application of the credentials required to access the backend systems?
A . Create a Mule domain project that maintains the credentials as Mule domain-shared resources Deploy the Mule applications to the Mule domain, so the credentials are available to the Mule applications
B . Store the credentials in properties files in a shared folder within the organization’s data center Have the Mule applications load properties files from this shared location at startup
C . Segregate the credentials for each backend system into environment-specific properties files Package these properties files in each Mule application, from where they are loaded at startup
D . Configure or create a credentials service that returns the credentials for each backend system, and that is accessible from customer-hosted and MuleSoft-hosted Mule runtimes Have the Mule applications toad the properties at startup by invoking that credentials service

Answer: D

Explanation:

* "Create a Mule domain project that maintains the credentials as Mule domain-shared resources" is wrong as domain project is not supported in Cloudhub

* We should Avoid Creating duplicates in each Mule application but below two options cause duplication of credentials – Store the credentials in properties files in a shared folder within the organization’s data center. Have the Mule applications load properties files from this shared location at startup – Segregate the credentials for each backend system into environment-specific properties files. Package these properties files in each Mule application, from where they are loaded at startup So these are also wrong choices

* Credentials service is the best approach in this scenario. Mule domain projects are not supported on CloudHub. Also its is not recommended to have multiple copies of configuration values as this makes difficult to maintain Use the Mule Credentials Vault to encrypt data in a .properties file. (In the context of this document, we refer to the .properties file simply as the properties file.) The properties file in Mule stores data as key-value pairs which may contain information such as usernames, first and last names, and credit card numbers. A Mule application may access this data as it processes messages, for example, to acquire login credentials for an external Web service. However, though this sensitive, private data must be stored in a properties file for Mule to access, it must also be protected against unauthorized C and potentially malicious C use by anyone with access to the Mule application