IT Service Management - Information Technology Infrastructure Library

Information Technology Infrastructure Library

IT Service Management is often equated with the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, (ITIL) an official publication of the Cabinet Office in the United Kingdom. However, while a version of ITSM is a component of ITIL, ITIL also covers a number of related but distinct disciplines and the two are not synonymous. The ownership of ITIL has transferred from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to the Cabinet Office, following the move of OGC into the Cabinet Office.

The current version of the ITIL framework is the 2011 edition. The 2011 edition, published in July 2011, is a revision of the previous edition known as ITIL version 3 (published in June 2007).It was a major upgrade from version 2 (2001). Whereas version 2 was process oriented (split in 2 groups: service support and service delivery), version 3 is service oriented. Since ITIL V3, the various ITIL processes are grouped into 5 stages of the service lifecycle: service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation and Continual service improvement (or CSI). The use of the term "Service Management" is interpreted by many in the world as ITSM, but again, there are other frameworks, and conversely, the entire ITIL library might be seen as IT Service Management in a larger sense.