The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) defines the organisational structure and skill requirements of an information technology organisation and a set of standard operational management procedures and practices to allow the organisation to manage an IT operation and associated infrastructure. The operational procedures and practices are supplier independent and apply to all aspects within the IT Infrastructure.

ITIL was originally created by the CCTA under the auspices of the British government, and ITIL is a registered trademark of the UK Government's Office of Government Commerce (usually known as the OGC).

The 'library' itself continues to evolve, with version three, known as ITIL v3, being the current release. This comprises five distinct volumes: ITIL Service Strategy; ITIL Service Design; ITIL Service Transition; ITIL Service Operation; and ITIL Continual Service Improvement. These can be obtained from TSO Books, the publishers.

Within these sets are the specific descriptions and definitions of the various ITIL practices and disciplines.

The contents of two most commonly used sets within the previous release, Service Support and Service Delivery are broadly still present. These were as follows: Incident Management; Problem Management; Configuration Management; Change Management; Release Management; Service Desk; Service Level Management; IT Financial Management; Capacity Management; Availability Management; IT Service Continuity Management; IT Security Management.

There are three levels of certification for ITIL: Foundation Certificate, Practitioners Certificate and Managers Certificate. For those holding these certificates, we are maintaining the ITIL Certification Register. If you are qualified, please feel free to add your details.

For corporate/organizational certification, the relevant emerging standard is ISO 20000. This is quickly emerging to be a central driver for ITSM, and is conceptually the framework within which ITIL itself operates

The 'open' ITIL FAQ is intended to answer a number of common questions, including those related to ITIL v2.

This site represents a community effort to explain and document ITIL as simply as possible. As a collaborative site, you are invited to contribute. If you have ITIL knowledge, please help us to improve the content of our website. Unfortunately we can’t offer any reward because the website doesn’t show advertising and therefore doesn’t generate income. The hosting is provided by A2 Hosting for a really cheap price; we applied their promo code during the checkout.