What is ITIL?

What is ITIL?

ITIL stands for the IT Infrastructure Library, a set of guides to good practice in the management of IT services. ITIL is not a methodology. It is best described as a set of coherent practices developed out of the experience of large numbers of companies and organisations. ITIL attempts to identify the best of breed amongst these practices and to make them available to a wider audience in a usable and adaptable way. ITIL is now regarded as the world-wide standard in IT Service Management.
The Library originally consisted of ten volumes divided into two categories, as follows:

Service Delivery:

Service Level Management
Cost Management
Capacity Management
Availability Management
Contingency Planning

Service Support:

Help Desk
Problem Management
Change Management
Configuration Management
Software Control and Distribution

These ten volumes have recently been replaced by two large volumes:

ITIL Best Practice for Service Delivery
ITIL Best Practice for Service Support

ITIL Best Practice for Service Delivery covers the following topics

Service Level Management
Financial Management for IT Services
Capacity Management
IT Service Continuity Management
Availability Management

ITIL Best Practice for Service Support covers the following topics

Service Desk
Incident Management
Problem Management
Configuration Management
Change Management
Release Management

There are recognised qualifications in ITIL at various levels. Many companies offer training leading to these qualifications.

There are also software products which claim to be ITIL compliant. However, it is important to realise that ITIL is primarily about processes, and that the purchase of such ITIL compliant tools will not necessarily produce an ITIL compliant business.

Casaubon Eck is an independent ITIL consultancy and is able to give genuinely objective advice on your training needs and software requirements.

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