IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an IT service management framework, developed under the auspices of the U.K.’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC), that provides process guidance on the full life cycle of defining, developing, managing, delivering and improving IT services.

It is structured into five main books: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement. ITIL does not provide specific advice on how to implement or measure the success of the implementation; rather, that is something that an organization should adapt to its specific needs.

Most infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders now consider ITIL to be the de facto best practice guidance for IT service management. However, ITIL is not a comprehensive standard; it does not offer detailed, prescriptive process guidance, and it is not an exclusive framework to address processes in different parts of the IT organization, such as application development or project management.