What is ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)?

ITIL stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library, and it essentially works as a management framework that provides a number of ICT services, including practical ways to identify, plan, deliver and support IT services to businesses. ITIL provides detailed checklists, as well as comprehensive tasks and procedures that a business can tailor to its specific needs.

ITIL in Information Technology

Businesses are huge, multi-layered monsters that require taming, and the growth of computers and Information Technology, especially the Internet is ramping up the complexity even further. Although digital technology can make life easier, it is only through its efficient usage that maximum performance can be achieved. ITIL helps businesses to reach those levels of performance, resulting in the transformation and growth of the company. How does ITIL Help? ITIL highlights and explains the core practices of proper IT development through the publication of five guides. These guides cover the entire ITIL service life cycle, explaining customer needs, design, implementation of the service and improvement of the current skills. In total, ITIL pledges to: - Improve IT services
- Reduce costs
- Improve customer satisfaction
- Improve productivity
- Improve skills and experience
- Improve delivery of third party service.

Who uses ITIL?

ITIL has been adopted by many organisations from all over the world, including NASA, the NHS (UK National Health Service), HSBC bank and Disney. Other well-known clients include HP, BT (British Telecom), Telefonica and IBM. Beyond these companies, ITIL is used by a host of different services, such as examination institutes, software, tool vendors and training providers. Criticisms There has been a number of criticisms over the service that ITIL provides. For one, it is stated that the publications are too expensive for non-commercial users. ITIL has also been accused of being a "holistic, all-encompassing framework for IT governance." These claims extend to accusing ITIL of favouring "religious zeal" over pragmatism. Other information It is possible to earn ITIL certification through an examination process. If passed, the successful student can expect to receive a pin as a reward for their endeavour. There are many different levels of ITIL qualifications, including Foundation, Practitioner and Manager in ITIL v2, and Foundation, Intermediate, Expert and Master in ITIL v3. Qualifications are earned through the use of a credits system.