If you are wondering what ITIL is about, it is stands for Information Technology Infrastructure Library. The library is made up of several manuals and books that point out the proper practices that will benefit IT managers. The purpose of ITIL is to help managers set the right standards for IT as well as perform operations correctly every day.

Overview

The procedures are not dependent on suppliers and encompasses development issues, operations and IT infrastructure. But it should be emphasized the books have a copyright and ITIL is a trademark.

ITIL has been around for a long time and it has undergone numerous stages of development.

Its origins are not exactly clear, but a lot of experts believe that it emerged from yellow books which were very popular and utilized by IBM back in the 1970s. It was really only in the 1990s that ITIL came about. Regardless of its origin, ITIL has been used by people in the IT industry for many years now.

Content

The books consist of several texts, the major ones being Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement, Service Transition, Service Design and Service Strategy. The first library was comprised of books that dealt with specific IT service management themes. But the library proved so popular that it was expanded and it has now reached 30 volumes. Because 30 volumes are very large, version two was consolidated to bring down the cost and make the information easier to digest.

ITIL v2

ITIL v2 had a different kind of packaging and could be bought in sets. The package consists of topics that are related to guideline procedures as well as other aspects of information technology such as IT management, services and IT applications. It has to be noted that while it has a lot of features the best known are Service Delivery, Service Support and other related services. Even though these sets are the best known, the entire library has to be used as they are very comprehensive. Furthermore, it will help an IT manager get started on business quickly.

The books in ITIL version 2 include Introduction to ITIL which is actually one of the major core competencies of the library. With it you will learn what ITIL is about, publications available in the library, the methods that you will use as well as the benefits and advantages it offers.

Book two is called Service Delivery and the emphasis here is on becoming productive, and assessing the long term needs of businesses from information and communications technology. The third book is called Service Support and the focus here is on the end user and how to accomplish their tasks.

The Other Books

The fourth book is ICT Infrastructure Management-and offers advice for employee best practices, technical support, operations and related matters. Security Management- ITIL is book five and focuses on preventing hacking. Book six concentrates on business perspective and it focuses on guidelines and practices related to software applications.

If you are studying what ITIL is about you should also know about the other books in the library like Application Management for book 7, while book 8 is about software asset management. Book 9 is all about planning to implement service management and for book 10 it is about ITIL small scale implementation. Each of these books covers the subject in depth.

Kim is a free lancer writer of http://www.whatisitil.org