ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)

ITIL is a best-practice framework and the de facto standard in IT Service Management. The abbreviation stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library. ITIL provides guidance with processes and proven methods for planning, delivering and operating IT services effectively.

To this end, ITIL defines a series of core processes (such as Incident, Problem and Change Management, Service Level Management and others) as well as roles and functions (e.g. Service Desk) and assigns them to the service lifecycle in five phases (Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement in older versions such as ITIL v3). ITIL helps organizations to introduce a common vocabulary and standardized procedures, which increases the quality and efficiency of IT operations.

Since its introduction in the 1980s, ITIL has been continuously developed (currently ITIL 4) and is now widely used internationally as the reference framework for IT Service Management. (Note: ITIL® is a registered trademark of AXELOS Limited, a PeopleCert company.) Suitable ITSM software helps to manage such processes centrally and document them traceably. Within Enterprise Service Management, such service processes can be standardized beyond IT as well.

See also: Incident Management and Change Management.