ITIL Introduction and ITIL Terms

Story Highlights

• An Introduction to ITIL and history
• ITIL Definitions
• Quick comparison between ITIL V2 and ITIL V3
• Important ITIL terms

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An introduction to ITIL and definitions of important ITIL Terms

Introduction & History

1. ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library.
2. It was first published by Office of Government Commerce. Primarily represented as OGC.
3. The first version ITIL V1 was created in 1980’s to improve IT infrastructure management at UK Central Government.
4. The second version ITIL V2 was created in 2000 / 2001. This version bought improved processes for International Audience and new types of Service Delivery
5. The third and the current version ITIL V3 was created in 2007. This version introduces Service Life Cycle Model and greater focus on overall business strategy
6. Most adapted version in the world is ITIL V2 and from last 5 years most of the organizations are upgrading their processes to ITIL V3.

Definition: The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) defines the organisational structure and skill requirements of an information technology organisation and a set of standard operational management procedures and practices to allow the organisation to manage an IT operation and associated infrastructure. The operational procedures and practices are supplier independent and apply to all aspects within the IT Infrastructure.

The current version of ITIL (ITIL V3) focuses on the five volumes align to service life cycle approach and focus on business strategy. Figure 1 shows the five volumes of ITIL V3 and their associated placements.

Quick comparison between ITIL V2 and ITIL v3 Versions

Comparing these two version are like an mobile upgraded OS  and we most of the time says the newer version is far better since it comes with some new feature and bug fixes. The same applies when organization compares these two versions of ITIL. Since, we don’t have many versions of ITIL the improvement or changes that we see from ITIL V2 to ITIL V3 are huge. This affects the adaption rate of new version. In the begining when the ITIL V3 was launched organizations struggled to understand and adapt the new changes and till today many are operating at Version  2 and many are in the process of migration to Version 3.

Important ITIL Terms and you may find these terms in your day-to-day IT operations:

• Incident: Any event that is not part of the standard operation of a service and causes, or may cause, an interruption to, or a reduction in, the quality of service.
• Major incident: An incident with a high impact, or potentially high impact, which requires a response that is above and beyond that given to normal incidents. Typically, these incidents require cross-company coordination, management escalation, the mobilization of additional resources, and increased communications.
• Problem: The undiagnosed root cause of one or more incidents.
• Known error: An incident or problem for which the root cause is known and a temporary workaround or a permanent alternative has been identified. If a business case exists, an RFC will be raised, but—in any event—it remains a known error unless it is permanently fixed by a change.
• Request for change (RFC): The formal change request, including a description of the change, components affected, business need, cost estimates, risk assessment, resource requirements, and approval status.
• Backout plan: A documented plan detailing how a specific change, or release, can be undone after being applied, if deemed necessary.
• Change advisory board (CAB): The CAB is a cross-functional group set up to evaluate change requests for business need, priority, cost/benefit, and potential impacts to other systems or processes. Typically the CAB makes recommendations for implementation, further analysis, deferment, or cancellation.
• Operating level agreement: An internal agreement with support IT functions, supporting the SLA requirements.
• Operating level objective: Objectives within an operating level agreement that indicate the measures to be reported in the operational environment. The operating level objectives are aligned to the service level objectives.
• Service: A business function deliverable by one or more IT service components (hardware, software, and facility) for business use.
• Service catalog: A comprehensive list of services, including priorities of the business and corresponding SLAs.
• Service level agreement: A written agreement documenting the required levels of service. The SLA is agreed on by the IT service provider and the business, or the IT service provider and a third-party provider.
• Configuration Management System (CMS): Tools and databases to manage IT service provider’s configuration data and contains Configuration Management Database (CMDB). It records hardware, software, documentation and anything else important to IT provision and release. It is a collection of hardware, software, documentation, processes or other things require to implement one or more approved changes to IT Services
• ITSM: A set of specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to the customer in the form of services.
• Capabilities: Capabilities represent the capacity of an organization to coordinate,manage and apply resources in order to produce value. Capabilities are intangible assets of an organization and cannot be purchased but must be developed and matured over time
• Resources: A generic term that includes IT Infrastructure, people, money or anything else that might help to delivery an IT Service. Resources are also considered to be tangible assets of an organization
• Process Owner: A process owner is responsible for ensuring that the process if fit for the desired purpose and is accountable for the outputs of that process. Example:The owner for the Availability Management Process
• Service Owner: A service owner is accountable for the delivery of a specific IT Service. Responsible for continual improvement and management of change affecting Services under their care. Example: The owner of the Payroll Service.
• Process Manager: The person responsible for the operational management of a process. There may be several Managers for the one process. They report to the Process Owner.
• Internal Service Providers: i.e. that is embedded within a business unit E.g. one IT organization within each of the business units. The key factor is that the IT services provide a source of competitive advantage in the market space the business exists in.
• Shared service Providers: i.e. that provides shared IT service to more than one business unit, e.g. one IT organization to service all businesses in an umbrella organization to service.
• External Service Providers: Service provider that IT services to external customers i.e. Outsourcing.

If you need more information on ITIL you can visit the official website of OGC now AXELOS here.

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