Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL): An Introduction

Information infrastructure is the most commonly and frequently used method for Information Technology management globally. It elaborates commonly used methods, processes and practices which are not for a particular organization and used by many organizations for attaining a workable limit of competency. It helps in establishing a benchmark, which helps them design implement and monitor. It also helps a way to establish if the processes are correctly followed and whether the processes are running better than the existing ones.

It is a pragmatic approach to recognize, implement and maintain information technology service to the organization. Three decades ago the focus of evolving computer technology changed from mainframes and large computer systems to small and distributed approach towards this technology. Organizations became more comfortable with the dispersed approach as it provided them with a free hand but this also led to non-standardization of these services as at different place development went about very differently. This was first realized by the Government Commerce office located in United Kingdom the standardization of these services will lead to very consistent performance as well as it will be very easy to measure and control the service levels and hence Information Technology Infrastructure Library was started.

The basic function of IT was to concentrate on Infrastructure services and technology was being taken care in isolation. With establishment of ITIL there was a new approach which was suggested in IT Service management guidance. IT was to take a wider role in managing services. The businesses were to be to be managed totally with the help of IT. Integration effort also emphasized that the customer was being delivered best of the services and in the stipulated amount of time in which there promised. It also ensured the accuracy of the system by using appropriate utilities and functionalities.

ITIL is most efficient when it is used in combination with other best practices in the fields of Information Technology. Some of them are listed below

·         COBIT (a structured format of IT Governance and Controls)

·         Six Sigma ( helps in maintaining and improving quality)

·         TOGAF (a framework for IT architecture)

·         ISO 27000 (a benchmarking technique for IT security)

Benefits of ITIL

Information Technology Infrastructure Library is based on the concept of Service Lifecycle. They include

·         Service Strategy

·         Service Design

·         Service Transition

·         Service Operation

·         Continual Service Improvement

There are numerous advantages of Information Technology Infrastructure Library. Some of them are listed below:-

·         SLA is fixed by considering various business variables. It helps in achieving goals in time and at reasonable costs

·         It helps in aligning IT services with the business goals and objectives. It plays a major role in in effective business management as it helps with timely inputs in various business decisions. It also provides effective solutions to some of the critical business problems by analyzing the complete scenario. It helps the business in timely predictions with the help of Service Portfolio Management and also help in strategizing with the help of IT Strategy Group

·         It becomes easy to monitor and control the processes. This assists in satisfying the customers by setting the expectations right and also in a way which is compliant to the regulatory requirement

·         The process and services become highly efficient with help of these systems. It is very easy to identify roles and responsibility of each individual, so they can be held accountable if the work is not completed on time or if there are any quality issues. This helps in delivering better quality and within the delivery schedules. This also helps in future planning and scheduling of tasks by taking in account the historical data.

·         It is easy to understand as common language is used. Also the new people can be trained easily on it.

·         With every assignment the processes and services can be improved further by critically analyzing the facts. The efforts and results are easy to measure and hence they become more manageable. It becomes easier to align these processes to the overall business strategy and also it improves the overall efficiency as proper control measures are kept in place. When the key success factors can be controlled and measured repeatedly it helps the organization in gaining control over their core competencies and to keep their customers happy and satisfied.