Which of the following best describes the SDLC?

Building an information system is a complex undertaking that benefits from a structured, repeatable process rather than an ad-hoc approach, which is why organisations follow an established methodology.

The System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is exactly this: a structured framework describing the stages an information system passes through, typically including planning, analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance. It provides a systematic approach that guides a development team from identifying a business need all the way through to delivering and maintaining a working system.

The other options misidentify what the SDLC actually is. It is not a programming language, since it does not consist of syntax or code used to write programs; instead, it describes the process surrounding development. It is not solely a debugging methodology, since debugging is only one small part of the testing and maintenance stages within the wider cycle. It is also not a hardware configuration protocol, since it addresses the overall development process for an information system, not the technical setup of physical hardware.

When a question describes a "framework" or set of "stages" for building a system, that phrasing points to the SDLC, since it describes the full end-to-end development process rather than any single technical tool or language.