Ashford Global IT
1800 Pembrook Dr. Suite 300
Orlando, Florida 32810
Toll Free: (888) 838-5498
Local: (407) 612-6999
An Overview of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library® – Learn Why It Is Important for You
Witnessing the growth of the Information Technology (IT) industry and the increasing dependence of business functions on IT, there was a need to develop a support tool. The goal was to design Information Technology in such a way that it assists in meeting business goals and fulfilling customer requirements and expectations. Therefore, in the late 1980s, the UK government developed the Information Technology Infrastructure Library® (ITIL®). After seeing the success of ITIL in the UK, organizations across the world started adopting it, and soon ITIL became a global standard for IT Service Management (ITSM).
ITIL is a comprehensive set of policies and concepts essential for managing IT infrastructure and service. The main principle behind documenting ITIL was to provide structured yet flexible guidelines for establishing governing standards. In general, ITIL aligns business and IT, reduces costs, optimizes outsourcing, improves service levels, and improves the ability to manage change. One of the objectives of ITIL is to provide continued service support to all users with zero or minimum interruptions or system failures.
Two areas which ITIL focuses on are Service Support and Service Delivery. The Service Support area deals with IT functions which guarantee the continuity, availability, and quality of services delivered to users. On the other hand, the Service Delivery area focuses on the business aspects of the services offered. It deals with service levels, availability, continuity, financial viability, security and the essential IT infrastructure capacity.
ITIL Documents
Over the years, ITIL has been revised to make it more up-to-date. Today, the edition in use is ITIL Version 3. The ITIL series is divided into five documents comprising of Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. These documents define how system and network management can be organized within individual organizations. In addition, these documents comprise the various stages in the ITIL Service Lifecycle.
Service Strategy aligns business and Information Technology. Its philosophy is that each stage of the Service Lifecycle must be business-specific to each individual organization. This means that each stage must define business goals, business requirements, and the service management principles. Service Design provides direction in the design, production, or maintenance of IT policies, architectures, and documents. Service Transition provides guidance for ensuring smooth functioning of IT related roles and services when an organization is going through a change. Service Operation focuses on carrying out operational tasks such as filling requests, resolving failures, and fixing problems. Through Continual Service Improvement, the feedback can be reviewed and understood. This further enables improving the services on a continual basis.
Types of ITIL Certification
The ITIL V3 Qualification Scheme is divided into four levels: Foundation, Intermediate, Expert, and Master. The Foundation Certificate is designed for entry-level professionals working in IT Service Management. Through this certification, applicants are provided with basic knowledge of ITIL including terminology, philosophy, and the background of ITIL. The Intermediate Level is divided between two streams: the Lifecycle Stream and the Capability Stream. In the Lifecycle Stream, insight is provided regarding the five stages of the Service Lifecycle: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. On the other hand, the Capability Stream consists of Planning, Protection and Optimization, Service Offerings and Agreements, Release, Control and Validation, and Operational Support and Analysis. These modules focus on detailed process implementation and management within cluster groupings.
Individuals who have achieved both the Foundation and Intermediate Certifications can further enhance their knowledge by enrolling in the Expert Certification course. Lastly, the ITIL Master qualification is the highest level within the V3 program. This certificate is designed for those professionals who have proven their ability to implement defined ITIL processes within their own organization.
Benefits of ITIL
ITIL was designed in order to offer IT service providers with consistent, documented procedures and repeatable processes that improve service delivery to customers. Due to its successful implementation and proven results, ITIL has reached the mark of the world’s most widely recognized set of IT service standards.
In today’s competitive world, there has been a shift from developing IT applications to managing IT services. IT applications only focus on achieving corporate goals; when interruptions occur or modifications are required, the maintenance and operational processes provide the required support. Initially, IT management only focused on managing IT, but with the development and implementation of ITIL, there has been a shift towards helping businesses achieve strategic objectives.
There are numerous benefits of adopting ITIL. Some of these have been summarized as below:
- Contains tried and tested processes.
- Provides simplified processes that can be used immediately.
- Has a quick-start approach to assist you in making the best use of your time and resources available to see quick results.
- Separates administrative tasks from technical ones, helping you assign the resources appropriately.
- Properly allocates resources to keep costs at a minimum.
- Contains templates, checklists, and downloads that can be used the way they are or can be customized.
- Helps in measuring technical support performance.
- Can be implemented in any organization. Size does not matter. Small or large, centralized or decentralized, private or public organizations can all benefit from ITIL.
- Ensures that the users are provided with reliable, consistent, high-quality service which is also cost-effective for the organization.
- Focuses on feedback and aims at continuously improving the service.
- Identifies roles and responsibilities for IT Service Management.
- Supports the ability of IT to measure and improve internal performance and service provisioning.
- Sustains improvement of user productivity.
- Provides a scalable documented framework for IT best practices that flow across the IT organization.
- Improves communication and flow of information between IT and business departments of the organizations.
- Enhances compatibility between IT when business opportunities and challenges are presented.
- Reduces the cost of recruitment and training, incidents, etc.
- Assets are utilized in an optimized way.
- Increases competence, capability, and productivity of IT staff.
- Improves Return on Investment of IT.
These are a few of the advantages of implementing ITIL; organizations can reap additional benefits depending on how they use it. In general, all corporations have experienced reduction in costs, improved processes, and enhanced services. ITIL has brought growth and improvement to business.
Regardless of the size, both small and large organizations are looking for certified ITIL professionals who can optimize their IT processes and procedures. Hence, more and more IT professionals are earning ITIL certifications in order to enhance their career prospects. Keeping this in mind, Ashford Global IT (AGIT) has designed a series of ITIL training courses to provide you with the knowledge needed not only to pass the certification examinations but also to implement ITIL practices in your own organization.
