ITIL Framework

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is the only consistent and comprehensive documentation of best practice for IT Service management. It consists of a set of non-proprietary, comprehensive and fully integrated set of ISO9000 quality management procedures and best practices that optimises IT service management and operations. ITIL consists of over 46 modules, which address the issues facing IT service management ranging from help-desk management to contingency planning. With over 20,000 businesses, governments, non-profit organisations and consultants using it, ITIL is the most widely accepted IT process management framework in the world, with the result that a whole IT Service Management philosophy has grown up around the guidance contained within the ITIL books.

Service Support processes framework:

Key messages are:

• The Change Management Process is a key control gate as this is where fixes and scheduled releases have the impact assessed and managed;


• Configuration Management supports all of these key processes by providing impact analysis and consistent reporting and monitoring. Without an effective Configuration Management infrastructure these processes will be lacking;


• Although all of these processes are important, Change Management and Release Management are critical as this impacts the quality of what goes into the production environment;


• The automation of these processes is essential, but the tools selection should be based on supporting the requirements of the organisation – not the other way around. For example, with today’s business solutions cutting across multiple technologies, it is important to consider the automation in light of the need to provide consistency across technologies;


• Testing in the ITIL framework is considered to be represented in the Release Management function.

Service Management processes framework:

Key messages are:

• Service Level Management is a critical process as it has three important co-ordination points in the Service Delivery lifecycle. Firstly to establish the SLA’s from a strategic perspective. Secondly to monitor the achievement of SLA’s through the testing cycle prior to it entering production, and finally, to monitor the SLA’s in production;
• The linkages of SLA Management flow into all key Service Delivery processes are highlighted in the above chart. For example, the impact of SLA’s on Capacity Management and the Capacity Plan is considerable;