Introduction to ITIL

Raguram Muthaiyan
Magesh Viswanathan

Contents:
ITIL Introduction

Implementing ITIL Process

Relationships between ITIL

Process
Table of Contents

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 1. ITIL – Introduction

IT Environment Today:

In today’s competitive environment, the IT management needs to provide high quality,

cost-effective services, which maximize business benefits. The complexity of managing
these services in the face of continually changing business requirements and customer
expectations is rapidly increasing.

To meet these increasing demands, all organizations, large or small, public or private with
centralized or decentralized IT services, need documented, systematic, and structured
methods of service management.

1.1 What is ITIL

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides an effective IT Service

Management approach, which increases service quality and ensures consistent improvement
in IT strategy, design, development, and delivery.

ITIL is a generic framework created by using the practical experience of professional users
to manage IT infrastructure and services. ITIL describes all the tasks, activities, inputs,
and outputs of commonly used processes in an organization.

Over the years, the ITIL framework has developed to form a mature ITIL environment. This
environment has certain fixed and variable components.

The fixed components are

• ITIL books

• Models

• Organizations

• Certification exams.

The variable components are

• The consultants

• Trainers

• Suppliers.

The fixed components are updated by using the practical experience of the consultants,
trainers and suppliers. This is an ongoing improvement process for modifying the existing

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theoretical framework based on the best practices in the industry. ITIL provides a common
terminology for the processes and functions and this makes ITIL the de facto standard in
ITSM.

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1.2 Purpose

ITIL aims at designing various process that help organizations;

• Identify procedural gaps & redundancies in IT infrastructure

• Measures and benchmark system performance

• Meet the company’s IT needs using efficient and controlled methods

• Align the organizations strategies and decisions with key business objectives

1.3 Benefits

Implementing IT Service Management with ITIL helps;

• Improves the quality of service as the provision of IT Services becomes more

customer – focused

• Minimize the costs at the customer end disruptions in Service delivery bcoz of
effective and consistent IT service.

• Channelize communication in the organization in a structured manner since it

defines the roles in each process and also provides a better description of services.

• Common Terminology: Detailed term definition to help the people in IT

organizations understand each other and easily exchange information.

• Standardization: Uniform frame of reference for

o Internal and external communications

o Procedure identification

• Process-Oriented Approach: Clear and defined process to help the organization

to

o Easily implement changes

o Focus on corporate objectives

o Effectively outsource IT services

o Monitor the quality of services

o Introduce a Quality Management System

1.4 Scope of ITIL

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The scope of ITIL includes the objectives, activities, roles and inputs and outputs of all the
common processes present in an IT organization. However, ITIL recognizes that each
organization has different implementations of the ITIL process. Therefore, it does not
provide any restricting guidelines for process implementation.

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1.5 Structure of ITIL

Following five elements combines the ITIL Structure

1. Service Delivery

It provides information that helps identify the services that are required to provide
adequate support to the business.

2. Service Support

It ensures that the customer has the appropriate access to the required services that
support business functions.

3. Application Management

It helps redefine the business requirements according to the changes in the

business. It also helps the organization in incorporating these changes in its
processes and functions.

4. Business Perspective

It provides information for helping the organizations in bridging the gap between the
organization’s working and the customer requirements.

5. Infrastructure Management

The ICT Infrastructure Management element provides information on;

a. Network Service Management

b. Operations Management

c. Systems Management

d. Local Processes Management

Quick Reference

Service Delivery – Identify the service required to provide adequate support to business

Service Support – Customer has appropriate access to the required services

Application Mgt – Redefine the business req according to the changes in business.

Business Perspective – Bridging the gap b/n organization’s working and customer
requirements

Infra Mgt – Mgt of Network, Operations, Systems & Local process Mgt
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 2. Implementing ITIL Process Effectively

Organizations encounter difficulties while planning, implementing, and managing the ITIL
process. To effectively implement ITIL processes, we need to consider the possible
bottlenecks that can occur during each stage of process implementation.

The following bottlenecks might impact implementation of the ITIL processes:

2.1 Organizational Culture

a. People related factors such as attitude of the employees to change, work

culture and values of the people employed in the org.

2.2 Bureaucracy

b. Rigorous and time-consuming aspects of the processes might make the

processes seem bureaucratic.

2.3 Understanding

Organizations need to have a clear understanding on the factors, such as:

c. Need for the process

d. Knowledge of the business stratege

e. Objective of the process

f. Performance indicators for the process

2.4 Lack of Management Support

g. Management has to fully supports the process implementation and it t must

ensure that all the required following resource are provided to ITIL process
teams;

i. Additional personnel

ii. Finances

iii. Support Tools (such as training programs)

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2.5 Handling staff Resistance

h. Employing external resources for implementing the process can lead to

resistance and non-acceptance by the existing employees.

i. To improve the employee’s attitude, the management can setup a team

comprising new external personnel and existing internal employees.

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 3. Relationship between ITIL Process

• ITIL enables organizations to apply a process-oriented approach for managing TI

services.

• ITIL acts as the de facto standard for IT Service Management

• The ITIL framework is a comprehensive set of best practices promoting a quality

approach for IT service management

• These practices are continuously updated to achieve business effectiveness and

efficiency in the use of information systems.

• ITIL framework has a wide scope and its main focus is ITSM.

• Service support and Service deliver are the two main components of ITSM.

• Each component includes specific ITIL processes that help in effectively managing
the IT services and meeting the ITSM objectives.

3.1 Service Support

Service support process focus on day-to-day business operations;

Service Desk:

 It serves as the single point of contact between service providers and

users

 Effectiveness of the Service Desk determines the smooth functioning

of the business operations.

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  It also ensure the maximization of service availability

 It has multiple functions, such as;

 Issuing Change requests

 Informing Users about the standard changes

Incident Management

 It is an external event in the standard business operations that might affect the
service quality.

 This process helps in resolving Incidents to restore the IT services with minimum
impact on business operations

Problem Management

 Problem is an undesirable situation created in the infrastructure, for which the

causes are not known.

 The problem Management process involves identifying, checking, eliminating,

and controlling errors within the IT infrastructure.

Change Management

 A ‘Change’ is regarded as a modification or addition to any part of the

infrastructure, such as hardware, software, network, environment, or related
documentation.

 The change management process describes standard methods and procedures for
implementing Changes with a minimum adverse impact on the IT services.

Configuration Management

 The entire IT infrastructure can be broken down into logical units, called
Configuration Items (CIs)

 The attributes and location of each CI is defined in a database called the

Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

 This process provides information to all other ITIL processes by managing and
controlling the CI’s and their inter-relationships.

Release Management

 A release is a new or changed software and hardware (CI’s) that is introduced in the
IT Infrastructure.

 The Release Management process controls the distribution of hardware and software,
including integration, testing and storage.
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  It also ensures that only the correct and tested versions of the authorized software
and hardware are implemented.

3.2 Service Delivery

The Service Delivery processes focus on the long-term and consistent delivery of IT services
to the customer.

Service Level Management

 It defines the services to be delivered to the users.

 The service levels negotiated and agreed with the Users are recorded in the SLAs.

 The process involves ensuring that services are delivered at the agreed levels.

Financial Management

 The aim is to manage the financial dependencies between the IT services and the IT
resources that are being used by each service.

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Availability Management

 The Availability Management process ensures uninterrupted business operations by

measuring and maintaining the availability levels of IT resources.

Capacity Management

 The objective is to align the resource levels with the requirements of the organization
and the customers.

 The process also aims at providing the required IT resources at acceptable costs.

IT Service Continuity Management

 This process attempts to ensure Business Continuity by restoring IT services

immediately after any disasters.

Security Management

 The objective is to protect the IT infrastructure against unauthorized access.

 This will be achieved by specifying security requirements in terms of Service level

Agreements, Legislations, Contractual requirements, and polices.

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SEMI (Service Management for Excellence) Model

 The complex inter-relationships between the ITIL processes are illustrated by using
the SEMI model.

 This model illustrates the interdependencies and relationships of all ITIL processes
with each other and their interaction with the user and client environment.

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