What is ITIL?
ITIL® (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a framework and
set of best practicesthat enable Information Technology Service Management (ITSM), based on practical history and experience, not theoretical ideas. It is important to differentiate that ITIL is a framework, not a methodology. It is not a set of rules or procedures.
Originally created in the United Kingdom in the late 1980's, the framework was built in response to the growing dependency that businesses have on information technology. It provides businesses with a customizable framework of best practices to achieve quality service delivery.
ITIL provides a process lifecycle model and associated reference books are available. In addition to texts, which can be purchased online, ITIL services and products include training, software tools, and professional organizations such as the IT Service Management Forum (itSMF).
Individuals may achieve ITIL certifications. Organizations looking to show that their services are built in accordance with these best practices may achieve an ISO/IEC 20000 certification of a service. ISO/IEC 20000 is the international standard for IT service management. Any organization wishing to be formally certified against the scheme gets assessed by a Registered Certification Body (RCB). Once the requirements of ISO/IEC 20000 have been satisfied, the RCB will issue a certificate of conformance and the organization will be eligible to use the itSMF ISO/IEC 20000 logo as a sign of their achievement and may also request a listing on this website, enabling instant verification by visitors.
ITIL provides a common language and approach to implementing best practices within an organization and has permeated to thousands of organizations around the world.
This “best practices framework” is based on the collective experiences of various commercial and government practitioners around the world. These experiences have been meshed together to create one common set of best practices.
ITIL defines “what” your organization should be doing and leaves much of the “how” up to you. ITIL provides objectives, activities, roles, inputs and outputs of all of the common processes present in an IT organization. However, it recognizes that each IT organization has a need to implement ITIL processes to meet its own needs and, therefore, does not provide any specific guidelines for implementing these processes.
Framework comparison:
ITIL: The IT Infrastructure Library is a customizable framework of best practices that promote quality computing services in the IT sector. Built on a process-model view of controlling and managing IT services, ITIL addresses the structure and skill requirements for an IT organization by presenting a comprehensive set of management procedures.
ISO/IEC 20000: This is the international industry standard for IT service management. Organizations may achieve certify a service, using a
COBIT: Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology is a framework for information security that provides managers, auditors and IT users with a set of generally accepted IT control objectives to assist them in developing appropriate IT governance and control in a company.
CMM: The Capability Maturity Model is a method for evaluating and measuring the maturity of the software development process of organizations on a scale of 1 to 5. A revised version, the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), provides guidance for improving an organization's processes and a way to manage the development, acquisition and maintenance of products or services.
Six Sigma: Six Sigma is a data-driven quality-management program to control variation and thereby achieve extremely high levels of quality. "Six sigma" refers to six standard deviations in statistical measurement, which in the methodology corresponds to a maximum of 3.4 failures per million units.
Plexent owns and holds a license for the use of ITIL copyrighted material with HMSO the administrator of Crown copyright information. ITIL® is a registered trademark, and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. IT Infrastructure Library® is a registered trademark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.