Overview of the Information Technology Infrastructure

Information Technology Infrastructure Library, or ITIL, was created by the British government in the 1980’s in an attempt to create a standard for the efficient and effective utilization of its several IT resources. The British government, with the help of IT professionals who applied their experience and expertise, developed and published a series of best-practice books. Each one of these books targeted a different IT process. ITIL is now an industry of organizations, consulting services and publications. ITIL is still evolving, and its 44-volume set has now been combined into eight books.

As dependency on IT services grew in the 1980’s, the British government established a set of propositions. It acknowledged that, in the absence of standard procedures, government and private agencies were developing their own IT management policies. Originally, the IT Infrastructure Library was a collection of books, and each one covered a specific process. Later on, the number of books in the ITIL grew.

ITIL, which consists of concepts and methodologies for Information Technology (IT), places a great deal of stress and importance on quality. The main focus of ITIL is the efficiency and effectiveness of IT services, and how they can be supported. Within the ITIL structure, the business divisions of the organization that commission and pay for services, are considered as the customers, or consumers, of IT services. These IT services could be Accounting or Human Resources. The organization which provides these services is known as the service provider.