What is ITIL Framework?

ITIL is a public framework that describes Best Practice in IT service management. It provides a framework for the governance of IT, the ‘service wrap’, and focuses on the continual measurement and improvement of the quality of IT service delivered, from both a business and a customer perspective. This focus is a major factor in ITIL’s worldwide success and has contributed to its prolific usage and to the key benefits obtained by those organizations deploying the techniques and processes throughout their organizations. Some of these benefits include:

- increased user and customer satisfaction with IT services
- improved service availability, directly leading to increased business profits and revenue
- financial savings from reduced rework, lost time, improved resource management and usage
- improved time to market for new products and services
- improved decision making and optimized risk.

ITIL was published between 1989 and 1995 by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) in the UK on behalf of the Central Communications and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) – now subsumed within the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). Its early use was principally confined to the UK and Netherlands. A second version of ITIL was published as a set of revised books between 2000 and 2004.

source: An Introductory Overview of ITIL V3 itSMF 2007