For organizations with established CI/CD practices, the Mule Maven plugin is the recommended tool for automating packaging and deployment across multiple environments, including CloudHub, on-premise Mule runtimes, and Anypoint Runtime Fabric. Here’s why:

Automation with Maven:

The Mule Maven plugin allows for CI/CD integration by supporting automated build and deployment processes. It is commonly used in CI/CD pipelines to handle application packaging and deployment directly through Maven commands, making it ideal for teams that want consistent deployment automation across different MuleSoft environments.

Supported Deployment Targets:

The Mule Maven plugin supports deployment to various targets, including CloudHub, Runtime Fabric, and on-premises servers, thus meeting the needs of environments with diverse deployment destinations.

Why Option B is Correct:

The Mule Maven plugin is specifically designed for CI/CD pipelines and integrates with Jenkins, GitLab, and other CI/CD tools to facilitate continuous deployment. It is the most efficient MuleSoft-provided tool for this purpose.

Explanation of Incorrect Options:

Option A (Anypoint Runtime Manager) provides deployment management but does not automate CI/CD processes.

Option C (Anypoint Platform CLI) can script deployments but lacks direct integration with CI/CD tools.

Option D (Anypoint Platform REST APIs) requires custom scripting for deployment, which can be more complex than using the Mule Maven plugin.

ReferencesFor more details, refer to MuleSoft documentation on using the Mule Maven plugin for CI/CD​​.