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 | ITIL – IT Industry Best Practices, Part I |
What is ITIL?
ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library) is essentially a series of documents that are used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT Service Management. This customizable framework defines how Service Management is applied within an organization.
Although ITIL was originally created by the CCTA, a UK Government agency, it is now being adopted and used across the world as the defacto standard for best practice in the provision of IT Service. Although the ITIL covers a number of areas, its main focus is on IT Service Management.
Background
According to Wikipedia, ITIL is a "framework of best practice approaches intended to facilitate the delivery of high quality IT services. It outlines an extensive set of management procedures that are intended to support businesses in achieving value for money and quality in IT operations. These procedures are supplier independent and have been developed to provide guidance across the breadth of the IT infrastructure".
To the everyday businessman, ITIL means that his business’ information will be taken care of in a planned, deliberate, and fully professional manner.
History
It was initially developed during the 1980's, by the CCTA, and was widely adopted in the 1990's. This in turn led to the development of a number of standards. ISO 20000 ISO/IEC 20000 is the international standard for ITSM, and aligned generally with ITIL. It comprises a 'specification' (part 1) and a 'code of practice' (part 2)
ISO 20000, BS15000 and ITIL Conceptually, the two ISO 20000 standards and their relationship with ITIL, are best described with the aid of a diagram:
.jpg) This of course is an over-simplification, but it does demonstrate the broad relationships in play, and perhaps illustrates the importance of the standards. These were published in December 2005, based upon the earlier BS15000 service management standards. The standards themselves are described below: ISO 20000-1 This is the Specification for Service Management, the 'certifiable' element of the pair. ISO 20000-2 This is the 'Code of Practice for Service Management', which designed to work with the Specification, and outlines requirements, etc.
These two parts specify service management processes and form a basis for the assessment of a managed IT service. Part 1 may typically be used by: organizations seeking tenders for outsourced services; organizations that require a consistent approach by all service providers in a supply chain; existing providers to benchmark their IT service management; as the basis for formal certification; and so on. Part 2 provides guidance to auditors, implementation staff and others. |
