ITIL Overview

ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library) is essentially a series of documents that are used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT Service Management. This customisable framework defines how Service Management is applied within an organization. Originally created by the UK government, ITIL is currently accepted as a standard for best practices.

ITIL consists of a series of books giving guidance on the provision of quality IT services, and on the accommodation and environmental facilities needed to support IT. ITIL has been developed in recognition of organizations' growing dependency on IT and embodies best practices for IT Service Management.

ITIL is organized into a series of sets, which themselves are divided into two main areas: service support and service delivery. Service Support is the practice of those disciplines that enable IT Services to be provided effectively. Service Delivery covers the management of the IT services themselves.

1. ITIL Service Support

Service Support is the area that enable IT Services to be provided effectively. The different Service Support disciplines are:

1.1 Configuration Management

Configuration Management involves setting up a centralized database for provisioning and managing the IT services. Typically, this "Configuration Management Database" (CMDB) contains information relating to maintenance, asset management and configuration.

Configuration Management consists of the following:

1.2 Problem management

Incident/Problem Management is the resolution and prevention of incidents that affect the normal running of IT services in an organization. This includes using a trouble ticketing system for tracking, notification procedures as well as periodic preventive maintenance.

1.3 Change Management

Change Management is ensures all configuration or other operational changes are carried out in a planned manner. This includes authorized procedures, identifying the impact of each change, a backout procedure to reverse any changes, as well as a revision control system to keep track of older versions of configurations where possible.

1.5 Help Desk

The IT Service Help Desk is usually the first point of contact for all users when there is service failure or degradation. The Help Desk needs to be well informed by the engineers or operations staff of outages or planned downtime so that they can post this information for their users, and should also have a way to escalate incoming issues to more experienced and trained personlle.

1.6 Release Management

This is the management of configuration and versions of software within the organization. In addition to addressing the issue of several versions of the same software within the organization, this also addresses unlicensed and illegal copies of software within the organization.

There are several best practices in this area such as:

2. ITIL Service Delivery

Service Delivery is the management of the IT services themselves, and involves a number of management practices to ensure that IT services are provided as agreed between the Service Provider and the Customer.

ITIL Service Delivery consists of 5 disciplines. These are:

  1. Service Level Management
  2. Capacity Management
  3. Continuity Management
  4. Availability Management
  5. Financial Management

2.1 Service Level Management

Service Level Management is the primary management of IT services, ensuring that agreed services are delivered when and where they are supposed to be delivered. The Service Level Manager is dependent upon all the other areas of Service Delivery providing the necessary support that ensures the agreed services are provided in a secure, efficient and cost effective manner. A critical component of SLM is service level agreements.

In order to measure SLM in IT networks, it is important to have a fault management system that can provide downtime and availability reports.

2.2 Capacity Management

Capacity Management ensures that IT infrastructure is being utilized efficiently and it is available when needed at the right price. This requires:

2.3 Continuity Management

Continuity management (or Disaster Recovery) is the planning required to ensure that IT Services can recover and continue should a serious incident occur. In addition to reactive measures, it reduces the risk of a disaster by proactive planning. In addition to the continuity of IT services, the concept of Business Continuity Planning (BCP) tries to extend the practice to ensure that the entire business process can continue in the event of an outage.

Continuity management involves the following basic steps:

2.4 Availability Management

Availability Management involves measuring and quantifying the service uptime or availability of business or IT services. These metrics are typically critical for defining Service Level Agreements:

2.5 Financial Management

IT Financial Management is reviewing the cost of the IT infrastructure including maintenance, ongoing cost of ownership, failures, replacement, etc. The costs include software, hardware, staff, training, replacement, etc.