ITIL Definition

What is ITIL?

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is an ITSM framework made to standardize the planning, delivery, and maintenance of IT services within a business. The main goal of ITIL is to create effective, predictable service delivery. Guidelines and best practices help align IT departments to business needs and change them as the business grows or shifts direction.

In the 1980’s the UK’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) recognized the importance of IT as a service and the need for consistent practices across the entire IT service lifecycle. The organization released ITIL v1 in 1989.

In 2000, responsibility for ITIL was given to the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). ITIL v2 was released the following year. ITIL v3 was released 2007 and was updated in 2011 to resolve errors and inconsistencies.

Global best practice company AXELOS now currently oversees ITIL development. They announced the latest ITIL guidelines in 2017, and released ITIL v4 and related modules throughout 2019 and 2020.

ITIL framework

ITIL certifications help prepare admins for the current infrastructure landscape and the types of services they provide. ITIL’s framework is not a rigid checklist to implement best practices – businesses are encouraged to use only those aspects that are most important to their needs. Each version of ITL created over the decades addresses new areas of concern and was adapted to suit contemporary thought, work cultures, and technologies.

  • In 1989, ITIL’s goal was to standardize IT service management (ITSM). This iteration gave organizations an overview of how to streamline services and helped admins start thinking about best practices.
  • ITIL v2 later offered admins a more applicable and uniform structure for service support and delivery and included actual processes for organizations to follow.
  • ITIL v3 gives a broader look at IT services and adds guidelines on service strategy, design, transition, and operation.

ITIL v4 accommodates newer approaches, such as DevOps, automation, containers and microservices, and the cloud, and it emphasizes the integration of IT services management with other areas of a business, through ITIL v3’s stages and processes remain valid and widely used.

The current ITIL v4 framework is detailed across 5 books

  • Service Strategy – Describes business goals and customer requirements and how to align objectives of both entities.
  • Service Design – Outlines practices for the production of IT policies, architectures and documentation.
  • Service Transition – Advises on change management and release practices, and also guides admins through environmental interruptions and changes.
  • Service Operation – Offers ways to manage IT services on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.
  • Continual Service Improvement – Covers how to introduce improvements and policy updates within the ITIL process framework.

ITIL v4 also includes 34 practices, defined as resources and activities to perform work or accomplish an objective. (By comparison, ITIL has redefined processes as recommendations to guide an organization in all circumstances regardless of the type of work, goals, or management structure.) These practices are broken down into three categories:

  • General management practices, including projects and portfolios, enterprise risk, information security, continual improvement, workforce and talent, relationships, and suppliers
  • Service management practices, such as business analysis, service design and continuity, service desk, monitoring and incident management, change enablement, and IT asset management
  • Technical management practices, covering software development, deployment, infrastructure, and platform
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