Final answer:
An environment in business applications refers to an instance like Development, Test, QA, or Production, each serving different roles in the SDLC. A prototype is a preliminary model to test design decisions, different from a fully deployed software environment.
Step-by-step explanation:
An environment represents an instance or environment of a business application such as a Development, Test, Quality Assurance (QA), and Production instance. Each of these environments serves a pivotal role in the software development life cycle (SDLC). The development environment is where software engineers write and initially test code. The test environment is specifically for testing, where functionality can be verified. QA is an additional layer of testing to find bugs or issues from a user's perspective, often mirroring the production environment as closely as possible. Finally, the production environment is the live instance where the application is made available to the end-users.
Contrary to a prototype, which is a trial working model of a design built to test design decisions and identify potential problems, an environment is an actual deployment of the software that might still be under development or testing phases (for Development, Test, and QA environments) or fully completed (for the Production environment).