IT Management Reference Guide

During the second half of 2007, the United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is scheduled to issue Version 3 of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Over the past several years ITIL has become the world-wide de facto standard for best practices of IT infrastructure processes. Because of this, there is much interest in seeing what changes will be forthcoming in the new version, in determining why a new version was needed at this time and in examining what ways Version 3 will differ from that of Version 2. Before addressing these questions, it is worth examining how Versions 1 and 2 differed from each other.

How ITIL Version 2 Differs from Version 1

In 1989 the UK’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) first published elements of what would eventually become the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Version 1. This initial version grew to over sixty volumes and covered a large variety of IT issues. Some volumes dealt with issues that were clearly less significant than others such as those addressing office acoustics, backup power supplies and cabling techniques. Ten of the books became more popular and more widely used than any of the others; these were the ones that described service support processes and service delivery processes.

Service support and service delivery each consisted of five separate IT service-oriented processes as shown in Table 1 below. The service delivery processes are described as being customer-facing because they involve interactions primarily with the customers of IT services as opposed to users. In ITIL terms, customers are those who request, sponsor and often pay for (in the form of charge-backs) specific IT services. Customers are often the managers of the personnel who actually use the IT services in question.

Table 1 ITIL Version 1 Service Processes

Another difference between the processes of service delivery and those of service support involves their planning horizons. Service delivery processes tend to be longer range in their planning, usually in the order of months or quarters, while those of service support are much shorter in their orientations, in many cases no longer than hours or days.

Listing 1: Reasons for Revising ITIL Version 1

• Eliminate duplication
• Improve consistency
• Improve consistency
• Sharpen focus
• Update guidance

By 1997 it had become apparent to many in the IT service industry, and to infrastructure managers in particular, that ITIL required upgrading. While the framework was sound and offered many useful benefits, there were several reasons supporting the need for revision. Five of the most common are listed in Listing 1. The 60 volumes of version 1 was eventually reduced to eight, and the ten service process volumes down to two.

• Eliminate duplication—The original ITIL Service Management set consisted of ten separate publications. A good amount of duplication was required for each of these publications to stand alone, and that duplication was eliminated by consolidating the ten books into two.
• Improve consistency—The original ITIL Service Management set of ten publications was written by a number of authors over a span of time. Some concepts, definitions and distinctions were interpreted and presented differently, based on the practical experience of each author. One goal of the revision of the publications in 2000-2001 was the elimination of those inconsistencies.
• Enhance navigation—Ten publications with a good amount of duplication is a lot to navigate. In addition, there were variations in how the content was organized among the original ten publications. Consolidating the ten publications into two with a consistent navigation scheme was one of the goals of the 2000-2001 revisions.
• Sharpen focus—The original ten publication had some unevenness of focus, especially with regard to infrastructure management business issues. In version 2, the focus of the materials was sharpened. For example, the original Contingency Planning publication covered business continuity as well as IT continuity, with not enough focus on the continuity of IT services. This situation, and others, was remedied in the new publications.
• Update guidance—The guidance in the publications was updated to reflect changes since 1989. Given the fact that business use of the Internet was not on anyone’s radar in 1989, it is remarkable how relevant the original publications are. However, many things changed, and the guidance was updated to take advances such as the web infrastructure and application service providers into consideration. The guidance was also updated to ensure synergy with the newly published OGC IS guides.

Table 2 shows the service processes of ITIL version 2. The first obvious difference is that the two sets of five processes for service support and service delivery were both expanded to six processes, although each expansion warrants minor clarification. The help desk in version 1 included portions of an incident management process. In version 2 the help desk was split into a service desk function and an incident management process. Software distribution and control was renamed release management and included both hardware and software upgrades.

On the service delivery side, cost management was renamed financial management to emphasize financial budgeting and accounting of IT assets, and optional charging for IT services. Contingency Planning was renamed IT service continuity to reflect the fact that this process is more that just about the planning of contingencies; it is also about managing strategies and recovery plans in the event of a disaster. Finally, security management was included, even though it has its own volume, because of its close relationship to availability management.

Table 2 ITIL Version 2 Service Processes

How ITIL Version 3 Will Differ from Version 2

Table 3 lists the ITIL core volumes of versions 2 and 3. The eight volumes of version 2 will be consolidated down to five. The reasons for this are to further condense the number of volumes to a more usable quantity, and to focus attention on the service management aspect of ITIL. The original foundation of ITIL was heavily based on the principles of IT service management. Version 3 re-emphasizes this notion.

Table 3 Core Volumes of ITIL Versions 2 and 3

None of the 11 processes (plus the service desk function) of ITIL Version 3 are expected to have major revisions made to them, but their location in the new volumes will change. Most of the service support processes of version 2 will likely be included in the IT Service Operations volume; the service delivery processes will likely be split across IT Service Transition and IT Service Improvement. Developers are still finalizing ITIL Version 3 so some of the eventual changes may vary slightly from these expectations. But for those who may be putting off ITIL training and implementations of version 2 in anticipation of major wholesale with Version 3, the delay is not likely warranted. The overwhelming majority of best practices in version 2 will still apply to version3.