Explore Courses
course iconScrum AllianceCertified ScrumMaster (CSM) Certification
  • 16 Hours
Best seller
course iconScrum AllianceCertified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) Certification
  • 16 Hours
Best seller
course iconScaled AgileLeading SAFe 6.0 Certification
  • 16 Hours
Trending
course iconScrum.orgProfessional Scrum Master (PSM) Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconScaled AgileSAFe 6.0 Scrum Master (SSM) Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconScaled Agile, Inc.Implementing SAFe 6.0 (SPC) Certification
  • 32 Hours
Recommended
course iconScaled Agile, Inc.SAFe 6.0 Release Train Engineer (RTE) Certification
  • 24 Hours
course iconScaled Agile, Inc.SAFe® 6.0 Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM)
  • 16 Hours
Trending
course iconIC AgileICP Agile Certified Coaching (ICP-ACC)
  • 24 Hours
course iconScrum.orgProfessional Scrum Product Owner I (PSPO I) Training
  • 16 Hours
course iconAgile Management Master's Program
  • 32 Hours
Trending
course iconAgile Excellence Master's Program
  • 32 Hours
Agile and ScrumScrum MasterProduct OwnerSAFe AgilistAgile CoachFull Stack Developer BootcampData Science BootcampCloud Masters BootcampReactNode JsKubernetesCertified Ethical HackingAWS Solutions Architect AssociateAzure Data Engineercourse iconPMIProject Management Professional (PMP) Certification
  • 36 Hours
Best seller
course iconAxelosPRINCE2 Foundation & Practitioner Certification
  • 32 Hours
course iconAxelosPRINCE2 Foundation Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconAxelosPRINCE2 Practitioner Certification
  • 16 Hours
Change ManagementProject Management TechniquesCertified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) CertificationOracle Primavera P6 CertificationMicrosoft Projectcourse iconJob OrientedProject Management Master's Program
  • 45 Hours
Trending
course iconProject Management Master's Program
  • 45 Hours
Trending
PRINCE2 Practitioner CoursePRINCE2 Foundation CourseProject ManagerProgram Management ProfessionalPortfolio Management Professionalcourse iconAWSAWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
  • 32 Hours
Best seller
course iconAWSAWS Cloud Practitioner Certification
  • 32 Hours
course iconAWSAWS DevOps Certification
  • 24 Hours
course iconMicrosoftAzure Fundamentals Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconMicrosoftAzure Administrator Certification
  • 24 Hours
Best seller
course iconMicrosoftAzure Data Engineer Certification
  • 45 Hours
Recommended
course iconMicrosoftAzure Solution Architect Certification
  • 32 Hours
course iconMicrosoftAzure DevOps Certification
  • 40 Hours
course iconAWSSystems Operations on AWS Certification Training
  • 24 Hours
course iconAWSDeveloping on AWS
  • 24 Hours
course iconJob OrientedAWS Cloud Architect Masters Program
  • 48 Hours
New
course iconCareer KickstarterCloud Engineer Bootcamp
  • 100 Hours
Trending
Cloud EngineerCloud ArchitectAWS Certified Developer Associate - Complete GuideAWS Certified DevOps EngineerAWS Certified Solutions Architect AssociateMicrosoft Certified Azure Data Engineer AssociateMicrosoft Azure Administrator (AZ-104) CourseAWS Certified SysOps Administrator AssociateMicrosoft Certified Azure Developer AssociateAWS Certified Cloud Practitionercourse iconAxelosITIL 4 Foundation Certification
  • 16 Hours
Best seller
course iconAxelosITIL Practitioner Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconPeopleCertISO 14001 Foundation Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconPeopleCertISO 20000 Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconPeopleCertISO 27000 Foundation Certification
  • 24 Hours
course iconAxelosITIL 4 Specialist: Create, Deliver and Support Training
  • 24 Hours
course iconAxelosITIL 4 Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value Training
  • 24 Hours
course iconAxelosITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan and Improve Training
  • 16 Hours
ITIL 4 Specialist: Create, Deliver and Support ExamITIL 4 Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value (DSV) CourseITIL 4 Strategist: Direct, Plan, and ImproveITIL 4 Foundationcourse iconJob OrientedData Science Bootcamp
  • 6 Months
Trending
course iconJob OrientedData Engineer Bootcamp
  • 289 Hours
course iconJob OrientedData Analyst Bootcamp
  • 6 Months
course iconJob OrientedAI Engineer Bootcamp
  • 288 Hours
New
Data Science with PythonMachine Learning with PythonData Science with RMachine Learning with RPython for Data ScienceDeep Learning Certification TrainingNatural Language Processing (NLP)TensorFlowSQL For Data AnalyticsData ScientistData AnalystData EngineerAI EngineerData Analysis Using ExcelDeep Learning with Keras and TensorFlowDeployment of Machine Learning ModelsFundamentals of Reinforcement LearningIntroduction to Cutting-Edge AI with TransformersMachine Learning with PythonMaster Python: Advance Data Analysis with PythonMaths and Stats FoundationNatural Language Processing (NLP) with PythonPython for Data ScienceSQL for Data Analytics CoursesAI Advanced: Computer Vision for AI ProfessionalsMaster Applied Machine LearningMaster Time Series Forecasting Using Pythoncourse iconDevOps InstituteDevOps Foundation Certification
  • 16 Hours
Best seller
course iconCNCFCertified Kubernetes Administrator
  • 32 Hours
New
course iconDevops InstituteDevops Leader
  • 16 Hours
KubernetesDocker with KubernetesDockerJenkinsOpenstackAnsibleChefPuppetDevOps EngineerDevOps ExpertCI/CD with Jenkins XDevOps Using JenkinsCI-CD and DevOpsDocker & KubernetesDevOps Fundamentals Crash CourseMicrosoft Certified DevOps Engineer ExpertAnsible for Beginners: The Complete Crash CourseContainer Orchestration Using KubernetesContainerization Using DockerMaster Infrastructure Provisioning with Terraformcourse iconCertificationTableau Certification
  • 24 Hours
Recommended
course iconCertificationData Visualization with Tableau Certification
  • 24 Hours
course iconMicrosoftMicrosoft Power BI Certification
  • 24 Hours
Best seller
course iconTIBCOTIBCO Spotfire Training
  • 36 Hours
course iconCertificationData Visualization with QlikView Certification
  • 30 Hours
course iconCertificationSisense BI Certification
  • 16 Hours
Data Visualization Using Tableau TrainingData Analysis Using Excelcourse iconEC-CouncilCertified Ethical Hacker (CEH v12) Certification
  • 40 Hours
course iconISACACertified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) Certification
  • 22 Hours
course iconISACACertified Information Security Manager (CISM) Certification
  • 40 Hours
course icon(ISC)²Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
  • 40 Hours
course icon(ISC)²Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) Certification
  • 40 Hours
course iconCertified Information Privacy Professional - Europe (CIPP-E) Certification
  • 16 Hours
course iconISACACOBIT5 Foundation
  • 16 Hours
course iconPayment Card Industry Security Standards (PCI-DSS) Certification
  • 16 Hours
CISSPcourse iconCareer KickstarterFull-Stack Developer Bootcamp
  • 6 Months
Best seller
course iconJob OrientedUI/UX Design Bootcamp
  • 3 Months
Best seller
course iconEnterprise RecommendedJava Full Stack Developer Bootcamp
  • 6 Months
course iconCareer KickstarterFront-End Development Bootcamp
  • 490+ Hours
course iconCareer AcceleratorBackend Development Bootcamp (Node JS)
  • 4 Months
ReactNode JSAngularJavascriptPHP and MySQLAngular TrainingBasics of Spring Core and MVCFront-End Development BootcampReact JS TrainingSpring Boot and Spring CloudMongoDB Developer Coursecourse iconBlockchain Professional Certification
  • 40 Hours
course iconBlockchain Solutions Architect Certification
  • 32 Hours
course iconBlockchain Security Engineer Certification
  • 32 Hours
course iconBlockchain Quality Engineer Certification
  • 24 Hours
course iconBlockchain 101 Certification
  • 5+ Hours
NFT Essentials 101: A Beginner's GuideIntroduction to DeFiPython CertificationAdvanced Python CourseR Programming LanguageAdvanced R CourseJavaJava Deep DiveScalaAdvanced ScalaC# TrainingMicrosoft .Net Frameworkcourse iconCareer AcceleratorSoftware Engineer Interview Prep
  • 3 Months
Data Structures and Algorithms with JavaScriptData Structures and Algorithms with Java: The Practical GuideLinux Essentials for Developers: The Complete MasterclassMaster Git and GitHubMaster Java Programming LanguageProgramming Essentials for BeginnersSoftware Engineering Fundamentals and Lifecycle (SEFLC) CourseTest-Driven Development for Java ProgrammersTypeScript: Beginner to Advanced

ITIL was first developed in the late '80s by the Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency in Great Britain to improve quality at lower costs and improve their IT infrastructure. In its latest version, ITIL4 supports traditional IT services management along with transformative technologies like robotic automation, cloud computing, and AI. ITIL follows the standard for ISO 20000 and is currently one of the most accepted Service Management frameworks in the global market. ITIL works on the central idea of continual improvement of services and works with leading project management methodologies and frameworks such as DevOps, Lean, Agile, PRINCE2®, and AgileSHIFT®.

As business systems get increasingly complex, information technology plays a critical role in ensuring the smooth day-to-day functioning of present-day systems. It is virtually the backbone of business operations and delivery. Over the years, several frameworks have been explored to manage this complexity. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) standards or ITIL standards are one such framework of best practices in the IT domain. It is a framework that any business can adopt for its internal IT services, ensuring efficient and predictable IT service delivery. Holding an ITIL certification also opens up your IT career path for assured success. You can opt for an ITIL Foundation Certification course or IT Service Management certification to boost your career in this field.

ITIL is formally described on its official website as "an adaptable framework for managing services within the digital era. To know more about ITIL standards, CMBD, and ITIL learning paths, read the blog.

ITIL: A Quick Glance

ITIL sees IT services as a part of the core business rather than a separate silo in its present form. It sees a business as a system of multiple sets of related components and activities that enable value creation. It calls this value system the ITIL Service Value System (SVS), involving 34 practices. Every business's value system can interfacing with other businesses' value system, generating value for the businesses and their customers.

The 34 practices in ITIL are grouped into three major categories:

  1. General Management Practices
  2. Service Management Practices
  3. Technical Management Practices.

The service value chain is a system of six interacting components:

  • Plan
  • Improve
  • Engage
  • Design and Transition
  • Obtain/Build
  • Deliver and Support.

Master Right Skills & Boost Your Career

Avail your free 1:1 mentorship session

ITIL defines four dimensions to represent the various resources used in ITIL, like people, products, processes, and suppliers.

  • Organizations and People
  • Information and Technology
  • Partners and Suppliers
  • Value Streams and Processes

Here is a quick view of the ITIL SVS, also called SVC(Service Value Chain). These practices are well defined within the ITIL, providing a framework to effectively and efficiently manage IT services. You can use these established guidelines to manage processes and troubleshoot issues most quickly and economically.

What Is CMDB, and How Does It Fit In the ITIL Scheme?

ITIL 4 mandates that a business should keep track of its assets, including hardware, software, facilities and systems, and roles in a database called Configuration Management Database (CMDB). This CMDB stores the current configuration of these assets as per ITIL documentation standards within an organization to improve ITSM processes and positively impact business decisions. This centralized information on assets allows business leaders to understand configuration items and their relationships better. Configuration records of all assets are held through their lifecycle.

CMDBs have proven successful in impact analysis, incident management, root cause analysis, and ITIL standards change management.

With CMDB, business leadership can quickly get answers to questions like:

  1. What is the installed base for every type of hardware configuration?
  2. What is the installed base for every software configuration?
  3. What is the impact of systems or subsystems outage?
  4. How many software licenses are required?
  5. What should IT assets be purged for any terminated resource?
  6. What will be the IT assets or resources sanctioned to a new hire?

Let's explore some of the key features and benefits of the CMDB approach mandated by ITIL standards for incident management.

1. Improvement in Transparency and Visibility of IT Assets

Visibility of IT assets is a key requirement, especially in businesses that are scaling up or have grown to an enterprise level. With a diverse and distributed hardware asset, it is extremely important to maintain an updated database every time there is a purge in assets, or new hardware is acquired. Without a CMDB system, getting to know the volume of installed hardware and software base will take days, if not weeks, and this impedes agility and quick decision-making. The CMDB approach also keeps the entire asset management system transparent as well.

2. Helps in Accurate Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is indispensable for change management or new deployments. Any current hardware or software dispensation change requires a thorough risk assessment that plans for unexpected events resulting in system outages. With an accurate risk assessment, the impact of outages can be kept down to a minimum. A CMDB approach helps key relationships between configuration items, the systems, users, and configuration items that may be impacted during a change. Change management teams can isolate changes in high-risk situations and clarify the impacted systems and ensure zero outages.

3. Effective Incident/Event Management

Incident or problem management systems can be highly efficient and effective if a current and updated CMDB is used. CMDB acts as a valuable source of facts that can be used to engage/disengage/isolate systems as part of any contingency or emergency. Incidents raised against specific configuration items can help calculate accurate levels of impact and allow the assignment of appropriate severity levels.

CMDBs also allow IT teams to tag configuration items with relevant incident reports for future tracking and knowledgebase enrichment. Incident reports attached to configuration items can help IT teams procure future assets based on the incident costs on every CI.

Isolation and Elimination of Failing Configuration Items

With a record of every incident attached to the respective configuration item, IT teams can assess the stability of IT hardware and software assets. Specific information about failing configuration items like the average time to repair, the average time to repair specific asset class, total downtime, and the total derived cost of ownership, among others, are recorded with the CMDB. This stability also becomes an important factor in future decisions involving the purchase of IT assets.

ITIL Learning Paths

Now that we have a good idea of what ITIL is and what its applications are. Let's look at what it actually translates to in practice. To implement an ITIL solution in any business, you need certified practitioners and business leaders to mold the existing business processes into the framework envisaged by ITIL. Let's look at the various levels of expertise that any ITIL implementation demands.

ITIL 4 defines 2 cascading paths to expertise.

  • ITIL Foundation
  • ITIL Master

ITIL Foundation defines two separate paths:

  • ITIL Managing Professional (MP)

The following are the modules to obtain this certification:

  • ITIL 4 Specialist: Create, Deliver, and Support
  • ITIL 4 Specialist: Drive Stakeholder Value
  • ITIL 4 Specialist: High-Velocity IT

The Managing Professional course leads to certification for IT professionals involved in technology and digital teams who make a business-wide impact. The Managing Professional level is ideal for those IT professionals who are involved in managing and running IT projects, creating workflows and working with interdisciplinary teams.

  • ITIL Strategic Leader (SL)

The Strategic Leader path is suitable for professionals who engage with both business and IT operations. The focus here is on leveraging IT operations to implement business strategies.

Both the SL and MP paths can lead you to the ITIL Master level of expertise, which is the highest certification in ITIL 4. You can train online with comprehensive programs like the Knowledgehut ITIL Foundation certification course that leads to ITIL Foundation certification.

Top Cities where KnowledgeHut Conduct ITIL Certification Training Course Online

ITIL Certification in Singapore
 
ITIL Certification in Melbourne
 
ITIL Certification in Delhi
 
ITIL Certification in Pune
 
ITIL Certification in Mumbai
 
ITIL Certification in Perth
 
ITIL Certification in Bangalore
 
ITIL Certification in Sydney
 
ITIL Certification in Toronto
 
ITIL Certification in Hyderabad
 
ITIL Certification in Dubai
 
ITIL Certification in Brisbane
 
ITIL Certification in Chennai
 
ITIL Certification in Kolkata
 
ITIL Certification in Calgary
 

What Do ITIL Process Standards Mean in Practice?

An ITIL certification helps you demonstrate your skills in implementing best practices in the service management industry using ITSM tools. ITIL-certified professionals are in demand because of their ability to help transform businesses.

Some of the benefits of getting certified in ITIL are

  • Sound product knowledge.
  • Increased career growth prospects
  • Increased earning potential

The 4 levels of ITIL certification are described below in-depth. 

1. ITIL Foundation

This certification helps candidates with a basic understanding of the ITIL framework, which is ideal for those who are planning to adopt ITIL in their business. This certification enables candidates to look at an ITSM setup from an ITIL perspective. A successful candidate should be able to demonstrate a critical understanding of the following.

  • Concepts of Service Management that include value creation and understanding of service relationships
  • Various dimensions of service management
  • ITIL Service Value System
  • Key ITIL practices

2. ITIL Managing Professional

ITIL Managing Professional certification helps you demonstrate key skills in running IT-enabled services, IT services teams, and a deep understanding of IT workflows. There are 4 courses within this certification path.

  • ITIL 4 Specialist Create, Deliver & Support (CDS)
  • ITIL 4 Specialist Drive Stakeholder Value (DSV)
  • ITIL 4 Specialist High Velocity IT (HVIT)
  • ITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan & Improve (DPI)

3. ITIL Strategic Leader

An ITIL Strategic Leader certification will help you demonstrate your skills in understanding how IT can be aligned with business objectives and overall strategy. You are typically required to demonstrate your skill in enabling transformation by implementing ITIL standards to change process flow. There are 2 courses within this certification path.

  • ITIL 4 Strategist Direct, Plan & Improve (DPI)
  • ITIL 4 Leader Digital & IT Strategy (DITS)

4. ITIL Master

This certification validates your ability to apply techniques, principles, and methods from the ITIL framework in your workplace. You would have to personally explain how you have selected and applied the ITIL framework's knowledge, principles, methods, and techniques in your work area or a few practical assignments.

Ace the PMP exam and enhance your project management skills with our expert-led PMP exam prep course. Elevate your career and become a certified project management expert!

Tools for Implementing ITIL

As you know already, ITIL is a framework of best practices in the IT domain of any business. You will need to implement this framework through the use of ITIL-compliant software tools designed to tackle one or many areas of practice. ITIL can be used by any business that provides an ITSM product or service. Software tools like Web Help Desk, SolarWinds Service Desk, and ServiceNow is good examples of ITIL-compliant software tools. Both Web Help Desk and SolarWinds Service Desk are tools that can help implement the service management part of the ITIL framework.

Tools that conform to ITIL standards for incident management, like Remedy, ServiceCenter, or RequestTracker, follow a ticketing system. Tools like FobBugz and Bugzilla can help you out with the problem management end of your ITIL framework.

Successful Global Implementations of ITIL

According to Axelos, Spotify, the largest subscription-based music streaming service, has adopted the ITIL framework to streamline its IT infrastructure.

The key to Spotify's success is speed. The speed with which it delivers content and its agility in adapting to specific listener needs. A successful ITIL implementation helped Spotify reduce any friction in the IT space and enabled it to deliver excellent streaming service to millions of its customers across the globe.

Axelos, the business entity that owns licensing authority of ITIL, publishes case studies on ITIL implementations on its website. You can find the latest case studies on ITIL standards and best practices from Axelos at AXELOS Content Hub.

The Career Impact

ITIL certification needs a significant amount of preparation and handholding, particularly if you are not familiar with terms used frequently in the IT world. You must take your ITIL training and certification through an accredited training organization.

KnowledgeHut, a trusted partner among online learning portals, offers courses in ITIL Foundation and ITSM. The ITIL Foundation certification course is an Axelos-accredited training organization (ATO). KnowledgeHut also offers training and IT service manager certification. The course fee includes the examination fee and lifetime access to the courseware in both cases.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Is ITIL a standard or a framework?

2. What is the difference between ITIL and ITSM?

Manikandan Mohanakrishnan

176 articles published

Manikandan Mohanakrishnan is a highly skilled corporate trainer, consultant, and content developer with expertise in a wide range of areas including ITIL 4, PRINCE2, Agile/Scrum, PMP, DevOps, and soft...

Get Free Consultation

+91

By submitting, I accept the T&C and
Privacy Policy

Ready to fast-track your ITSM career?