ITIL - What is ITIL

ITIL stands for The Information Technology Infrastructure Library. The framework outlines important IT practices via comprehensive checklists, tasks and procedures that everyday IT companies can shape to suit their requirements. To put it simply -ITIL is a set of concepts and practices for managing Information Technology (IT) services (ITSM), IT development and IT operations.

The complete ITIL is published as a series of books, each of which covers a particular IT management area e.g. Service Strategy, Service Design etc. Books are available from main stream book stores such as Amazon and also online ITIL books can be found at the official ITIL website.

ITIL was first conceived back to the early 1980's with the release of ITIL v1. Originally aimed at large corporations, it has since been improved and refined for a larger audience of everyday organisations. ITIL v3 contains the most up to date and comprehensive IT practices and guidelines for IT management.

Split into five sections, ITIL V3 includes the following volumes which were published in May 2007:

1. ITIL Service Strategy

The preliminary starting point of the ITIL Service Lifecycle, Service Strategy provides guidance on clarification and prioritization of service provider investments in services. To put it simply, Service Strategy focuses long term on helping IT organizations to progress and improve. The market driven approach is at the core of the Service Strategy module. The main areas covered include service value definition, business-case development, service assets, market analysis, and service provider types.

2. ITIL Service Design

ITIL Service Design provides best practice guidance on the design of IT services, processes, and other aspects of the service management effort. Going one step further than the rudimentary meaning of design, ITIL Service Design encompass all elements relevant to IT service delivery. With Service Design it's all about how a planned service solution interacts with the business and technical environments as a whole. The module also goes into detail on the service management systems required to support the service, processes which interact with the service, technology, and architecture required to support the service.

3. ITIL Service Transition

ITIL Service Transition relates to the functional delivery of services required by a business into live or operational use. This module typically focuses on the "project" side of IT. This area also covers topics such as managing changes to the "BAU" environment.

4. ITIL Service Operation

The Service Operations module covers best practices for achieving the delivery of agreed levels of services to both end users and organisational customers. Customers are typically the individuals who pay for the service and negotiate the Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Service operation, as described in the ITIL Service Operation volume is the part of the lifecycle where the services and value is actually directly delivered. The functions include technical management, application management, operations management and Service Desk as well as, responsibilities for staff engaging in Service Operation.

5. ITIL Continual Service Improvement

Continual Service Improvement is seen as aligning and realigning IT services to changing business needs. ITIL describes companies that do not adapt as stale or in the declining phase.

ITIL Continual Service Improvement aims to align and realign IT services by identifying and applying enhancements to the IT services that support the overall business process or processes.

See also:

ISO/IEC 20000: IT Service Management
SO/IEC 27001: Information Security Management
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)
Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT)
Projects in Controlled Environments (PRINCE2)
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)
Management of Risk (M_o_R)
eSourcing Capability Model for Service Providers (eSCM-SP)
Telecom Operations Map (eTOM)
Six Sigma

ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 Part 1 - Specification
ISO/IEC 20000-2:2005 Part 2 - Code of Practice
ISO/IEC 20000-3:2007 Part 3 - Scoping and applicability
ISO/IEC 20000-4:2007 Part 3 - Service Management Process Reference
Model