ITIL, Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a customizable framework of best practices that help deliver IT services and promote process improvement of services.

History

The British government sought to improve the quality level of IT Services in the 1980s. The Central Computer and Telecommunication Agency developed a framework for providing fiscally responsible and efficient IT services.

In the 1990s, the framework was widely being adopted by large companies and government agencies throughout Europe.

In 2007, ITIL's version 3 was released.

Benefits

Reduced costs
Improved IT services
Increased productivity
Higher customer satisfaction

While v2 emphasizes process lifecycle and alignment of IT to the business. Version 3 focuses on the management of the lifecycle of the services IT provides, and the creation of business value.

In other words v3 aims to more directly impact a companies ROI as where v2 was more concerned with the following of processes.

Service Strategy - this volume consists of Service Portfolio Management and Financial Management. The purpose of this volume is to deliver services that provide a strategic advantage to internal or external customers. It is concerned with the design, implementation, maintenance and continual improvement of service.

Service Design - areas of responsibility for this volume are Availability Management, Capacity Management, Continuity Management and Security Management.

Service Transition - this volume consists of Change Management, Release Management, Configuration Management and Service Knowledge Management.

Service Operation - areas of responsibility for this volume are Incident Management, Problem Management and Request Fulfillment.

Continual Service Improvement - key areas are Service Reporting, Service Measurement and Service Level Management.

ITIL v3

V2 Framework

Ensures that the user has access to the appropriate IT services to support their business. This included the following services.

Service Desk - Provides a single point of contact between the users and IT services.

Incident Management - To help ensure optimal availability of operational services and to provide fast restoration of operational services in case of an outage.

Problem Management - To identify the root cause of an incident and then to take steps to prevent this cause from being an issue in the future.

Configuration Management - The process of tracking all the changes, sometimes called configuration items (CI), in a system.

Change Management - Implements and ensures standardized procedures are followed for requesting, making and recording of all changes to a system.

Service Delivery

Service Level Agreement
Capacity Management
IT Service Continuity Management
Availability Management
Financial Management

Service Management Implementation Security Management ICT Infrastructure Management

ICT Design and Planning
ICT Deployment Management
ICT Operations Management
ICT Technical Support

Business Perspective Application Management

ITILv3 for Small Businesses

Now, for small to mid sized businesses the issues and challenges they face are different from that of larger businesses. Obviously, they have fewer workers, they can have significantly lower budgets and less structured environments.

However, that does not mean that they can not benefit from a framework of best practices that optimizes services, provides better cost controls and more closely aligns with the underlining business.

Links and References