ITIL
What is ITIL? The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of guidelines for delivering IT services. It focuses on what has traditionally been known in many organisations as "operations".
ITIL is very broad. It covers many subjects including, but not limited to:
- Service support
- Service desk
- Incident management
- Configuration management
- Change management
- Problem management
- Release management
- Service level management
- Capacity management
- IT continuity management
- Availability management
- Financial management for IT
ITIL is published by the UK Government's Office of Government Commerce (OGC). As well as being used for UK public sector IT, ITIL is used by private organisations and in other countries.
ITIL version 3 was released in May 2007. It is structured differently from version 2. At the time of writing (June 2007) not all documentation has yet been published.
ITIL focuses on the processes that an IT service organisation should follow. It is complementary to system governance, which measures system qualities and characteristics and can contribute to effective service management.
Management tips
- If considering ITIL, be aware that ITIL version 3 was published in May 2007.
See
OGC's ITIL page.
Wikipedia articles on ITIL (covers version 2) and ITIL version 3.