IT service management is all
about providing efficient IT services which help meet business objectives. The origins of the phrase “IT Service
Management” or ITSM are not clear and no organization or entity can claim
ownership of this phrase. “Service" in an IT perspective typically is
viewed from the prism of IT Operations. However ITSM is not about IT operations
alone. ITSM encompasses the complete IT practise in an organization.
“Service management is a set of
specialized organizational capabilities for providing value to customers in the
form of services”
ITIL Service Strategy Core Book
Being process-focussed, ITSM can
be equated with any process improvement framework such as TQM or Six Sigma. ITSM is vendor agnostic. In short it provides
for a system to structure IT activities in an organization and the interaction
of IT personal with business or the consumer of services.
ITIL or Information Technology
Infrastructure Library is a specific framework for ITSM tasked with aligning IT
services with business needs. The origins of ITIL are in the period of the 1980’s
when the UK government realized the growing dependence of Government on IT and
the need for creating standard practises. The UK Government's Central Computer
and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) was tasked to come up with recommendations
to manage IT services in a more efficient manner. The result was a library of
42 books grouped subject wise providing practical knowledge aimed at
management, and not focussing on technology.
Over the years the ITIL Framework has
undergone various changes, responding to the changes in the IT environment from
the Mainframe era, outsourcing and now the latest “Cloud and Big Data”.
The first major revision in ITIL
was done in early 2000 when version V2 was released. The emphasis continued to
be operations even then. The need to
address the issues of IT strategy and “continual service improvement” as a separate
focus was recognized in the next major revision of ITIL V3 which was released
in 2007. ITIL V3 addressed a cyclical approach to Service Management and thus
was born the “Service Management Lifecycle”. The importance of this shift can
be assessed from the strategic perception of IT and it is fundamental
importance in any business.
Today ITIL is published in a series of five core
publications with a each book covering a specific stage of the lifecycle. The
latest update came in July 2011 when the ITIL 2011 edition was published. ITIL
is a registered trademark of the United Kingdom's Cabinet Office 