IT Infrastructure Library

ITIL is a public framework that describes Best Practice in IT service management. It provides a framework for the governance of IT, the ‘service wrap’, and focuses on the continual measurement and improvement of the quality of IT service delivered, from both a business and a customer perspective. This focus is a major factor in ITIL’s worldwide success and has contributed to its prolific usage and to the key benefits obtained by those organizations deploying the techniques and processes throughout their organizations. Some of these benefits include:

• increased user and customer satisfaction with IT services
• improved service availability, directly leading to increased business profits and revenue
• financial savings from reduced rework, lost time, improved resource management and usage
• improved time to market for new products and services
• improved decision making and optimized risk

ITIL was published between 1989 and 1995 by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) in the UK on behalf of the Central Communications and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) – now subsumed within the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). Its early use was principally confined to the UK and Netherlands. The initial version of ITIL consisted of a library of 31 associated books covering all aspects of IT service provision.

A second version of ITIL was published as a set of revised books between 2000 and 2004. The initial version was then revised and replaced by seven, more closely connected and consistent books (ITIL V2)consolidated within an overall framework. This second version became universally accepted and is now used in many countries by thousands of organizations as the basis for effective IT service provision.

In 2007, ITIL V2 was superseded by an enhanced and consolidated third version of ITIL,consisting of five core books covering the service lifecycle, together with the Official Introduction.
- An Introductory overview of ITIL V3-

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excerpt from various ITIL and other publications.
ITIL is a registered trademark and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) ad is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Best Practices vs Standards

Best Practices are accumulated knowledge that can help people and organizations avoid mistakes that the others have made. Best practices range from recommendations for specific coding specifications to descriptions of enterprisewide management processes that have proved to be successful.

Standards are a core set of common, repeatable best practices and protocols that have been agreed on by a business or industry group. Typically, vendors, industry user groups and end users collaborate to develop standards based on the broad expertise of a large number of stakeholders. Organizations can leverage these standards as a common foundation and innovate on top of them. - Service Management for Dummies -


____________________________________________________________________________________
excerpt from various ITIL and other publications.
ITIL is a registered trademark and a registered community trademark of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) ad is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

What is a service?

A service is a means of delivering value to customers by
facilitating outcomes, customers want to achieve without the
ownership of specific costs and risks. - An Introductory Overview of ITIL® V3

The outcomes that customers want to achieve are the reason why they purchase
or use the service. The value of the service to the customer is directly dependent
on how well it facilitates these outcomes.


What is a value?

Value is the core of the service concept. From the customer's perspective, value consist of two core components: utility and warranty. Utility is what the customer receives and warranty is how it is provided. - Foundation of IT Service Management based on ITIL V3


What is Service Management?

Service Management is a set of specialized organizational
capabilities for providing value to customers in the form of
services.- An Introductory Overview of ITIL® V3

Service management is what enables a service provider to understand the services they are providing, to ensure that the services really do facilitate the outcomes their customers want to achieve, to understand the value of the services to their customers, and to understand and manage all of the costs and risks associated with those services.

It includes all of the processes, methods, functions, roles and activities that a Service Provider uses to enable them to deliver services to their customers.

to be continued....