Leading Edge Practices

Every month, ITAudit will provide information on existing IT frameworks, legislation, best practices, and industry-specific regulations and standards to enhance auditors' knowledge in the area.

The IT Infrastructure Library

IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) started in the late 1980s when the UK's Central Computer and Telecommunication Agency ― now the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) ― commissioned a study to develop a new approach to manage technology more effectively. The result was version 1 of ITIL, originally called the Government Information Technology Infrastructure Management framework.

Now in its third version, ITIL contains eight books dealing with a broad range of IT subjects. Two of these books, Service Support and Service Delivery, are the heart of ITIL and the focus of ITIL adoption in many companies worldwide. Early ITIL adoption efforts began in the British government, later spreading to other nongovernmental institutions. From England, ITIL crossed over to other parts of Europe and Canada, where it has been widely adopted, and has made its way to the United States, where adoption is gaining momentum.

Books Within ITIL Framework

The ITIL framework contains eight books, each providing information on different IT topics. These books include:

  1. Service Support.
  2. Service Delivery.
  3. Business Perspective.
  4. ICT Infrastructure Management.
  5. Applications Management.
  6. Security Management.
  7. Planning and Implementation.
  8. Software Asset Management.

According to ITIL best practices, companies should have one service desk function or department with an overall framework consisting of 10 processes:

  1. Incident management.
  2. Problem management.
  3. Change management.
  4. Release management.
  5. Configuration management.
  6. Service-level management.
  7. Financial management.
  8. IT service continuity management.
  9. Availability management.
  10. Capacity management.

ITIL's Service Support book covers the first five processes, while its Service Delivery book discusses the last five. It is important to remember that ITIL only provides a process framework for the management of IT services and, as a result, does not describe in great detail how particular processes should be implemented.

When deciding whether to implement ITIL, organizations should weigh its benefits over those of other frameworks. Some benefits of ITIL implementation include:

  • A common IT dictionary ― an item that has been lacking in the present IT world.
  • Improved financial management of IT and better matching of IT services to organization needs.
  • Improved relationship between the IT function or department and the organization.
  • Improved use of the company's IT infrastructure and personnel.
  • Improved reputation of IT within the organization.
  • Information on the proper use of service-level agreements, which are key to defining the business' service relationship.

For more information on ITIL, visit the OGC's ITIL Web page and frequently-asked-questions page. The OGC Web site also features an ITIL pocket guide that provides an overview of ITIL's objectives, content, and coverage. The pocket guide can be found at www.ogc.gov.uk/sdtoolkit/deliveryteam/briefings/ITIL/index.html. For an expanded version of this article read "Getting to Know ITIL," published in the June 10, 2006 issue of ITAudit.